Japan and the army

Japan is one of a few countries that does not have an army. Instead of an army, it has a self defence force which is able to protect in case it is attacked. However, it is not allowed to attack another country if it is not directly attacked. It is also seen as being less effective than an army.

With that being said, I have made quite an interesting observation. Japan may not be at as big a disadvantage as it may seem. The citizens of this country are very disciplined and if the need arises, I'm sure they would be able to form an army of millions in a heartbeat. 

Soldiers pride themselves on uniformity.

They even shave their heads for the sake of uniformity. In the same way, Japanese pride themselves on unity. It's hard to find an 'individual' in this society. Japanese grow up learning to put the community before self. If a Japanese makes a discovery while working in a company, the company takes credit for the discovery, not the individual. This issue recently came up with Shuji Nakamura, the man who patented the blue light technology. The company has been insisting that the invention was a result of team work and so one person should not hold the patent. However, he fought it in court for many years. He fought for his individuality which resulted in him copping the nobel prize in 2014. This case stood out because it is not the norm for company workers to patent inventions that they created within the company in Japan. Team spirit is always cherished above the individual. For an army, this is a great quality. 

They work together as a team and leave no man behind. Team spirit is at the core of a soldier's training. It is also at the core of the average Japanese's character. They are so much of a team that even children's school bags are supposed to be the same.  

They are usually precise in their craft and frivolous mistakes are not allowed. An Indonesian friend of mine once made a speech, in which he said he learnt at his Japanese University that mistakes were not ok. Everyone knows that it's best to strive for excellence, but Japanese strive for perfection in everything. It's kind of like OCD behaviour is encouraged. Children have to learn correct ways to close doors, sit, talk to each other, think. Yea, I said think. 

An army do as it's told, no questions asked. Once it is told to go to war, it goes. Many people operate like that here. If you ask why they do what they do they have to stop and think. Usually the answer is 'I don't know' or 'because that's what I'm supposed to do'. 

With these qualities, I think it wouldn't be too difficult to create a big, strong army quickly, if Japan decided to create an army.