Parallel Histories: Germany and Japan from Demilitarized Pacifism to Peace-Keeping Operations

The course of the two states, Germany and Japan, has been full of contradictions, inconsistencies, and sometimes unclear compromises, and it required the whole arsenal of the tricks of balancing diplomacy. They have the same challenges concerning finding a healthy balance between satisfying the increasing international expectations and meeting the domestic pacifist requirements, between cultivating friendly relations with neighbouring countries and making the alliance with the United States as tight as possible, between threatening provocativity and threatening defencelessness. However, both of them succeeded in formulating a realistic and constructive national strategy and pursue a successful foreign policy – even if we take into consideration that both states have to be much more thoughtful concerning some actual public policy decisions and some political communicational manoeuvres. If they keep it in view, there opens a chance to play an actively decisive role, in a world characterized by generally peaceful conditions, without the necessity of giving up their responsible and rational pacifist attitudes.