Resurrection of Bushidō into a tool for Japanese ultra-nationalism & military expansionism?
By Purnaka L. de Silva*
NEW YORK | 22 February 2026 (IDN) — Japan’s acquisition of a parliamentary supermajority under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s landslide election victory marks a qualitative shift in the country’s political trajectory with significant implications for regional security, historical reconciliation, and the post-1945 pacifist international legal order.
Takaichi is a hardline nationalist conservative politician with ideological proximity to ultra-nationalist and revisionist currents. As such, she (a) denies Imperial Japan’s wartime military aggression and atrocities during World War II, (b) denies that coercion was used against “comfort women” (sexual slaves for Japanese troops), and (c) criticizes past apologies for war crimes, such as the Kono and Murayama statements.
In 2011, Takaichi was photographed with Kazunari Yamada, the head of a fringe group referred to as the “Japan Nazi Party.” Most visibly, her long-standing association with the influential ultra-conservative, ultra-nationalist 70,000-member Nippon Kaigi (Japan Conference) lobbying organization and the right-wing Japan Innovation Party (Ishin no Kai) is deeply troubling.
With their support, Takaichi will take the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP or Jimintō), the major conservative and nationalist political party in Japan, founded in 1955, further to the extreme right. She will use her parliamentary supermajority to increase military spending and officially recognize Japan’s armed forces by revising Article 9 of The Constitution of Japan – which is the “peace clause” – enacted in 1947 that formally renounces war as a sovereign right, prohibits the threat or use of force to settle international disputes, and forbids the maintenance of land, sea, or air forces.
All this, combined with Takaichi’s hawkish positioning on China, and repeated visits to Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which honors Convicted Class A war criminals—raises concerns among neighboring states—including China, South Korea (ROK), North Korea (DPRK) and Russia, and the wider international community.
While Japan remains institutionally constrained by democratic checks, alliance structures, and economic interdependence, a supermajority reduces veto points and accelerates policy implementation. The central risk is not an immediate reversion to pre-1945 militarism, but a steady normalization of coercive power projection, historical revisionism, and ideological reframing of national identity and the possible resurrection of Bushidō into a tool for Japanese ultra-nationalism and military expansionism that could destabilize Northeast Asia, weaken confidence-building mechanisms, and erode the normative foundations of Japan’s postwar pacifism.
Given Japan’s traditional esteem for the United Nations, the question now for the United Nations Security Council is whether this moment constitutes a durable ideological turn with systemic effects, or a bounded ultra-nationalist surge in Tokyo that would be managed within existing constraints.
Political Context: The Meaning of a Supermajority
A parliamentary supermajority provides the executive with enhanced capacity to:
- Initiate constitutional revision, particularly of the Constitution of Japan Article 9, which renounces war and the maintenance of “war potential.”
- Reshape defense doctrine and budgets beyond incremental reinterpretation toward formal legalization of expanded military roles.
- Reframe historical narratives through education policy, public memorialization, and official statements, diminishing institutional resistance.
Japan has already witnessed a gradual erosion of pacifist constraints since the 1990s, through reinterpretations that have enabled collective self-defense. A supermajority lowers the political cost of codifying these shifts into constitutional text, transforming what has been an elastic interpretation into a hardened legal mandate.
Ideological Profile of Prime Minister Takaichi
Prime Minister Takaichi represents the ascendant edge of Japan’s extreme-right conservative spectrum. Her record includes:
- Revisionist historical positions, including skepticism toward post-war war crimes tribunals and downplaying of imperial aggression.
- Affiliation with Nippon Kaigi, a powerful network advocating constitutional revision, patriotic education, and restoration of pre-war symbols of national pride.
- Symbolic nationalism notably visits to Yasukuni Shrine, which enshrines convicted Class-A war criminals—acts perceived by China, South Korea (ROK), and North Korea (DPRK) as validation of historical denialism.
- Strategic hawkishness on China, framing Beijing not merely as a trade competitor but as an existential civilizational and security threat.
These positions resonate domestically among constituencies unsettled by demographic decline, an aging population, economic stagnation, and perceived regional encirclement. Internationally, however, they amplify anxieties about Japan’s long-term intentions.
Constitutional Revision and Militarization Pathways
Article 9 of the Constitution has functioned less as a literal prohibition than as a normative anchor shaping Japan’s strategic culture. Its revision would have three principal effects:
- Legal Normalization of Military Power
Japan’s Self-Defense Forces (SDF) would be explicitly recognized as a national military, removing ambiguity and legitimizing expanded missions, including power projection beyond Japan’s immediate periphery and potential military adventurism. - Acceleration of Defense Integration
Constitutional change would facilitate deeper operational integration with the United States and partners such as Australia and India, embedding Japan more firmly in Indo-Pacific security architectures that China perceives as containment. - Domestic Ideological Shift
The symbolic break from post-war pacifism would recalibrate public discourse, legitimize a more assertive national identity, and narrow the space for pacifist, left-liberal and centrist opposition.
Regional Repercussions: China
Beijing views Japanese constitutional revision through the prism of historical trauma and strategic rivalry. Takaichi’s rhetoric and symbolism reinforce Chinese narratives of Japanese remilitarization, potentially justifying China’s own military expansion and hardening positions in the East China Sea and Taiwan Strait.
Korean Peninsula
For both South Korea (ROK) and North Korea (DPRK), Yasukuni Shrine visits and revisionist discourse undermine reconciliation. In Seoul, domestic pressure to counterbalance Japan may complicate trilateral U.S.–Japan–ROK cooperation. In Pyongyang, Japanese nationalism feeds propaganda justifying missile development and the North Korean nuclear weapons program.
ASEAN and the Wider Indo-Pacific
Southeast Asian states remain ambivalent—welcoming Japanese economic engagement and maritime capacity-building while remaining cautious about overt militarization that could intensify great-power rivalry that could negatively affect trade and development.
The Bushidō Question: Ideology and Historical Continuity
Concerns about a “resurrection” of Bushidō as state ideology must be approached with analytical restraint. Contemporary Japanese nationalism does not replicate the totalizing militarist ethos of the Meiji and World War II wartime periods. However, selective appropriation of martial values – discipline, sacrifice, loyalty – can function as symbolic legitimizers of ultra-right nationalism and military expansionism without full ideological revival that harks back to World War II.
The danger lies less in explicit imperial doctrine than in incremental mythmaking: reframing Japan as a uniquely virtuous civilization compelled to defend itself against hostile neighbors, thereby moralizing force. Such narratives, if institutionalized through education and public culture, could erode taboos that have restrained militarism and extreme-rightwing nationalist escalation for decades.
Constraints and Counterweights
Despite a supermajority, significant brakes remain:
- Public Opinion: Japanese society remains deeply ambivalent toward war, shaped by Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and post-war prosperity.
- Economic Interdependence: Japan’s reliance on regional trade, including with China, constrains adventurism.
- Alliance Management: The U.S.-Japan alliance both enables and restrains Tokyo; Washington may support burden-sharing while discouraging unilateral escalation.
- Institutional Pluralism: Courts, local governments, and civil society retain the capacity to delay or contest radical shifts.
These factors suggest a managed, ultra-nationalist, and military-expansionary turn rather than an abrupt rupture from past practices.
Implications for the United Nations and the Security Council
For the Security Council, the implications are systemic:
- Normative Precedent: Constitutional revision by a former Axis power from World War II carries symbolic weight for the post-1945 order grounded in renunciation of aggression—with the crime of aggression one of four core international crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Article 5).
- Regional Arms Dynamics: Japan’s shift may catalyze reciprocal military expansion and a Northeast Asian arms race, thereby increasing the risk of miscalculation.
- Historical Reconciliation: Persistent denialism undermines UN-backed norms on memory, accountability, and transitional justice.
The United Nations Security Council should avoid alarmism while maintaining vigilance regarding actions that could undermine regional stability or international law.
Outlook
Japan under Prime Minister Takaichi is unlikely to pursue overt imperialism. However, the convergence of supermajority power, ultra-nationalist military expansion, revisionist ideology, and regional insecurity/friction creates conditions for structural drift away from pacifist restraint. The trajectory points toward a more assertive, ideologically arrogant right-wing Japan, testing the elasticity of post-war norms without fully abandoning them.
The risk for the international community is not the return of the past in its original form, but its recompilation—e.g., the resurrection of the Bushidō into a tool for Japanese ultranationalism—history selectively repurposed to justify future power.
*Purnaka L. de Silva, Ph.D., is College and University Adjunct Professor of the Year 2022 and Best Adjunct Professor 2024-2025 at the School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University; Visiting Professor, Sol Plaatje University Faculty of Humanities; Director, Institute of Strategic Studies and Democracy (ISSD), Malta; and Strategic Advisor, Lead Integrity. [IDN-InDepthNews]
Prime Minister Takaichi delivering a policy speech during the plenary session of the House of Representatives on 20 February 2026. Source: Prime Minister’s Office of Japan