Japan Is Rearming. Will It Build the Bomb? (w/ Ian Buruma)

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Home of the Save. I do think we're seeing the end of Pax Americana. Whoever gets elected after Trump, it's not going to go back to the sort of post-war deal that was struck, which also depended so much on the Cold War. It's probably time that large and powerful countries like Japan, South Korea, Western Europe took care of themselves more. It's not a healthy situation, this over-dependence on one country. In one way or another, Europeans and East Asians have to deal. Whether it's Trump or anybody else. I'm used to pretty intrusive interest in my private life, given my profession. I was a field officer in Prague, and when I left the city, about 20 microphones were dug out of my house, because that's what it was like behind the Iron Curtain. But that's a high degree of intrusion. And more recently, the Russians hacked my emails and spread those. And that's pretty unsettling. Richard, you must have felt as though the Soviets were watching your every move, and now others are able to watch all your business online. They can find out a lot about you. Your private addresses, private phone numbers, financial details, banking details, details about your family, where your children are, patterns of daily life, your travel. I mean, there's so much which is vulnerable. And the worrying thing is that all that kind of information, we just put out there almost routinely now. So it's available for all kinds of scammers and fraudsters. This is why I use Incogni. That's Incogni. They have a wonderful opt-out request, which they can send to more than 420 data brokers. And they also have a people's search site facility, which keeps your personal information, and they can continue to cover those so that you don't get relisted. And the things that aren't. On the unlimited plan, the exposure scanner shows where you're exposed across the web. And if you click on Remove Me, the Incogni specialists can then handle that material and scrub it. And you can track exactly what they're doing from a dashboard to which you will have access as an Incogni subscriber. That sounds very comprehensive and perhaps enables us all to protect ourselves like a former spy chief. So for that level of protection, go to Incogni.com forward slash One Decision and use code One Decision for 60% off the annual plan. That's Incogni.com forward slash One Decision. Hello and welcome to One Decision. Conversations about intelligence, about statecraft and the forces that drive world politics with the people who've been in the room and on the ground. I'm your co-host, Kate McCartney. Hi, and I'm Sir Richard Dearlove, the former chief of MI6 British Intelligence. And Kate, it's great to see you again. We haven't seen each other for a few weeks. We haven't. And every time I hear you say that title, I think, my God, what a job. The things you must have in your brain. I never get bored of hearing it. We've got a really great conversation on the way today. Historic changes are stirring within the aggressors of World War II. Germany and Japan are dramatically scaling up their militaries, especially in the United States. They're spending a lot of money. They're developing intelligence services and whole new defense industries. And it means that both countries are shedding their limits on their armed forces, limits that have been in place for more than half a century. So how will that history shape their reemergence as fully-fledged regional powers? And what does it mean for all of us? Journalist and historian Ian Baruma joins us today. A Dutch citizen by birth, he spent significant time in both Japan and Germany. And his most recent book is Stay Alive, Berlin. 39 to 1945. Welcome to the podcast, Ian. Thank you. It's lovely to be here. Now, before we get started on the topic that we wanted to discuss today, I think we have to get into the issue of August Hanning, because there is something happening in Germany and something happening in the, I suppose, the German spy world that, Sir Richard, I think at least you will have an opinion on. What's going on here? Well, I can only speculate because I don't have great detail at the moment. But August, Hanning, the former head of the BND, who was contemporaneous with me when I was head of MI6, has been arrested on charges of treason with the actual, what I've read. And I must say, I'm deeply shocked. I knew August extremely well. We worked a lot together, although I haven't seen him since I retired. But I've sort of had exchanges with him from time to time. Reading between the lines, what I know so far is his chief of staff, continued to serve subsequent heads of the BND, and clearly was continuing to pass documents to August. And it seems as though August was giving those documents onward to a foreign government, maybe a business contact, but maybe an intelligence officer. It's not clear. I mean, we don't know which countries we're dealing with. That's not been announced. I was speculating myself whether it might be China. August, I know, was appointed. He was appointed to a number of prominent German boards and was quite heavily involved in aspects of German business. But it's a pretty extraordinary development and a worrying one. I think the content of the material is probably more analytical and policy-related than espionage-related because the BND as a service was not particularly operational. It was much more analytical. Anyway, those are my preliminary comments. And I think I'm going to end here. I felt, given the subject matter of the podcast, it was important for me to mention this straight away at the beginning. Ian, what do you think it means for the reputation of the BND? Yes, Sir Richard, I don't really want to say very much about this because I don't know enough, but it can't be good. And my question to Sir Richard, really, is, is Germany particularly vulnerable to this kind of thing? Because they seem to have had quite a few of these scandals. I mean, ever since Willy Brandt. Why is it Germany that always seems to be so vulnerable? So porous. It's a good question. And if you look at the history of the BND and the BFV, that's their internal security service, they have suffered penetrations on a pretty regular basis since the end of the Cold War. There was a former head of the BFV who actually defected back to East Germany early on post-World War II. And then in recent years, one of the senior officers in the BND, the case is still ongoing. It hasn't been finalized yet in the courts. So, I mean, my original explanation would have been the division of Germany. And I think that's still reflected politically in the rise of the AFD, which has a, in my mind, a specifically GDR, East German slant to it. And that division of the country, you know, and historically, if you read any, you know, scholarly study of Germany, part of Germany traditionally looks East. The sort of Prussian Junkers often looked towards, towards Moscow and, you know, Central Europe. And the Rhineland looked westwards towards France and the UK and to Europe more generally. So, I think that division in Germany, unified Germany, but of course it didn't unify until Bismarck, is still reflected in its politics and in its culture. You think it's a sort of residual sympathy for Ostpolitik and ideological rather than simplification? Well, I think it's a combination of both, if you want my honest opinion. And I mean, what was extraordinary is that the MFS, the East German Intelligence Service, found it so easy to penetrate the West German establishment, particularly, you know, when Willy Brandt and others were there. I mean, it was continuous and it was unnerving. And of course, it reflected how other Western intelligence organizations dealt with the BND and the BFV. We were always worried about their security. Shall we use this as a good moment to set the tone for the conversation we're going to have today? Because there will be some people who really do understand the depth of the German and Japanese military situations. There'll be those who think, why would I ever need to know about that? So, for all of us collectively together, Ian, can you set the tone for us a little? These two countries obviously were in a very different position after the Second World War. How did they react in the years that followed it? What did they do? Well, they weren't really all that different. I mean, they were obviously both Axis powers, both were occupied by the United States. I mean, Germany only partly, and there were other allies, but Japan pretty much only by the United States. And the difference is that the allies, the US in particular, had to figure out what had gone wrong, why had these countries gone to war. In Germany, the answer was there'd been the Nazi government, Hitler, and as long as you can denazify the country, they will join the Western alliance. It was a civilized country, the country of Mozart and Beethoven and so on could be resurrected. In Japan, there was no Hitler and no Nazi party. It was the same bureaucracy and power during the war that had been there before. So the answer was, it was militarism, the samurai spirit. So Japan had to be demilitarized. Demilitarized, and the Americans wrote a constitution that banned the Japanese from taking part in any kind of combat abroad, even though later they had their self-defense forces. But otherwise, it was rather similar. I mean, the deal that was made by the Americans with Western Europe, including Germany, very much including Germany, and Japan was, we will take care of security. You concentrate on rebuilding your economies and wealth and so on. And that'll keep the world safe. And that'll make sure that neither the Japanese nor the Germans will ever go to war again. Now that's become more and more threadbare. The deal had already, I suppose, been crumbling a little before, but under Donald Trump, it's become an acute crisis. And so both countries, I think, are faced with the same problem. I suppose by different, I meant different to us, which is is my, my favorite word. I'm sorry for my failure to explain the context properly. I suppose what I'm thinking about when I talk about that difference is maybe a sense of collective guilt or a sense of a need to atone for what happened in the Second World War. Was that reflected in the German and Japanese responses to what happened afterwards? Well, it's, that's a very interesting question. It's often the cliché is always the Germans have dealt so well with their guilt and faced up to history and all that, whereas the Japanese have swept it under the carpet, and they're a shame culture, and this is a typical sort of Asian thing. In fact, the Japanese in the early years after the war, in the late 40s and 50s, in cinema, in academe, and so on, which was fairly left wing in those days, faced up to it more quickly than the Germans did. In Germany, when they talk about facing up to history, dealing with coping with the past and all those things. People are really talking about West Germany. East Germany never had a problem with this because they were the anti-fascist half of Germany, so that was a different issue. But the West Germans did gradually deal with it, but that meant mostly dealing with the Holocaust. In school education, the invasion of Norway or Belgium or Holland, that's not the issue. The issue is really the Holocaust, and the Japanese didn't really have anything. They killed a huge number of people, but they didn't have anything quite like that. And also, in Japan, because of this pacifist constitution, history became very political in the sense that the left and the majority of the Japanese population, until not so long ago, felt that it was right for Japan to have a pacifist constitution and not never to go to war again because of their war guilt. As long as the left said that, the right that wanted to revise the constitution and restore Japanese sovereignty… The right that wanted to go to war had to say, "Well, there's nothing particularly to feel guilty about. All great nations have gone to war. Bad things happen in war," and so on. And so, what was really a political struggle over the post-war constitutional order also became a struggle over history. And has there been a shift in the younger generations? Has there been a shift in the younger generation? Yes, because the war has become rather remote. People know very little about it. History lessons at school tend to sort of end before World War II so that teachers don't have to deal with these difficult issues. If you look at the attitudes in polls to constitutional revision, in other words, revising the famous Article 9 that bans Japanese from going to war, the people who are most vehemently opposed to the revision tend to be the older generation, who do still have vagueness. They had big memories, or at least had parents who had memories. The young are more sympathetic to it. The question I was going to ask you, Ian, or ask you to comment on, really relates also to my professional experience in the period well after World War II, when both Germany and Japan are really important allies politically, but dealing with their bureaucracies whether you're talking about the armed forces or whether you're talking about the intelligence communities there, was a deeply frustrating experience because they were constitutionally high bound, both parties, both Japan and Germany. They were awash with intelligence opportunities and there was a sort of fundamental inability to exploit their positions geopolitically. So we had these allies. We had these allies that had a sort of permutation of experience and potential ability, and it was completely unexpressed. I mean, I can give you a specific example of Japan's relationship with North Korea and the massive North Korean community that you've actually got in Japan, and the complete inability of Japan to exploit this for intelligence purposes, when we're all scratching our heads about what on earth was going on. Anyway, I'm sure from your observations and research, Ian, you can comment on that. Yes, and that doesn't surprise me at all. I think both countries developed West Germany. East Germany, again, I think is a different subject, but West Germany and Japan became very, very sensitive to the use of intelligence, especially domestically, for obvious reasons. I think both countries were very comfortable, I think, leaving all these, all the dirty work to the Americans and felt rather virtuous. We no longer want to deal with these kind of things and, you know, we're nations of peace and the world should follow us and all that other stuff. Well, you know, let the Americans do it. And so I think this is changing and it's changing rather fast because of the Trump administration, because they realize, I'm sure, the Prime Minister of Japan, when she expresses herself in rather forceful ways about China, is not doing so only because she's a conservative hawk. I think she's doing it fully conscious of the fact that they can't rely on the Americans anymore. I was a field officer in Prague and when I left the city, about 20 microphones were dug out and my house, because that's what it was like behind the Iron Curtain. And more recently, the Russians hacked my emails and spread those emails around the internet. Well, Richard, you must have felt as though the Soviets were watching your every move and now others are able to watch all your business online. They can find out a lot about you, your private addresses, private phone numbers, financial details, banking details, details about your family, where your children are, patterns of daily life, your travel. And the worrying thing is that all that kind of information we just put out there almost routinely now. That's Incogni. And they also have a people's search site facility, which keeps your personal information and they can continue to cover those so that you don't get relisted. And the things that aren't on their list? And if you click on "Remove me," the Incogni specialists can then handle that material and scrub it. And you can track exactly what they're doing. From a dashboard to which you will have access as an Incogni subscriber. And for that level of protection, go to incogni.com/onedecision and use code "onedecision" for 60% off the annual plan. That's incogni.com/onedecision. I'm going to Germany first then, because that shifts us quite nicely onto the change, I suppose, in tone. What do you think the moment was where it became not just acceptable but desirable in Germany to talk about rearmament, to talk about military capability, to talk about spending vast sums of money? And we are talking huge amounts of money on defense. What was the moment you think that tipped it into that territory? I think Ukraine probably has a lot to do with this. And the moment it became really much more acceptable is when the Greens became the great defenders of supporting Ukraine. Because the Greens, after all, would have been inclined to pacifism before. If a CDU or CSU, so somebody on the right, would have talked like conservatives in Japan about the need for Germany to let bygones be bygones and concentrate on defense and that kind of thing, it wouldn't have been surprising. But when the Greens started using that kind of language, I think that did change things fairly fundamentally. But when Merz's predecessor made this speech about increasing the defense budget by this huge sum of money and then completely failed to implement, so he committed to the expenditure, but it didn't really advance that much further because it was partly blocked by the coalition relationship in the Bundestag. It seemed to me as though this was more taking a stance than taking a decision. But so how far, Ian, have things actually advanced now under Merz? I mean, in terms of implementation of that degree of expenditure and the process of rearmament, I mean, is the cause, my impression is they really have started implementation now and there's a cause for optimism in terms of the rearmament of Germany as a bulwark against Russia. Yes, I think it has. Yes. Yes. Yes. But I think that when German politicians make these statements about now things are going to fundamentally change, it's a bit like Macron talking about, you know, Europe having to make a big fist and then nothing very much happens. But the fact that Rheinmetall and manufacturers in Germany are seriously beginning to put their assets into rearmament must mean quite a lot. But I think Germany is probably still very divided between those who say we have to help Ukraine, we have to be more powerful and less dependent on the United States, are opposed by those who say, no, no, this is dangerous and belligerent and we should make a deal with the Russians, especially in the former East Germany. The latter opinion is probably still quite powerful. Hence, the rise of the EU. Yes. And the rise of the AFD. I mean, there are other reasons for that, too, but I think that's one reason. But how seriously would you take the discussion in Germany of them, let, for example, paying for some of the UK's nuclear defense? I mean, there has been this idea that somehow the French and British nuclear defense capability should become trilateral, not with the Germans developing it, but the Germans contributing to the cost. Do you think that this is a realistic discussion? I would prefer to ask that question to you. I mean, what do you think? Actually, I think in the medium to longer term, there's a definite possibility that things would go in that direction. I don't see Germany, despite the sophistication of its civil nuclear industry, becoming a nuclear power. That's a step too far. But I do see it maybe paying something towards a common European nuclear umbrella. But I guess that's taking a 10-year perspective, is that this is not going to happen fast. A lot will depend on what happens in Russia, of course. And I mean, I think if one saw an increase in Russian aggression towards Europe, even if it's gray warfare and undeclared, there will be stronger arguments to go down this track. And presumably that's because the Germans would like to have some kind of control over the use of nuclear arms in the future, not just leave it up to the French or the British. Absolutely. Because, you know, they're the key European power on the continent. And to be out of that game when there's a threat, let's say, of a nuclear exchange in Europe leaves them in a very exposed position. I think, and this again, it's not probably in the next 10 years, but I think the likelihood of the Japanese developing nuclear arms is greater than the Germans. Because the Germans at least are still embedded in what's left of NATO. And the Japanese have no equivalent. And if the Japanese and the South Koreans, of course, let alone the Taiwanese, if they can no longer rely on the American nuclear umbrella, there will be a panic. And changing the constitution so that they can have their own nuclear bomb is by no means unthinkable. And they can probably make it by tomorrow if they want. There's no question that Japan could gain. They could go nuclear faster than any other nation in the world. We've always assessed that they could develop a nuclear capability within 18 months, maybe less. But of course, there are all sorts of reasons why that can't happen at the moment and why psychologically it's unthinkable. But I agree with you. If you had a breakdown of security situation in the Pacific, that is a natural step for Japan to want to take and to take it quickly. Shall we talk a little bit about the context? For Japan right now then, because we've referenced Germany and I suppose the German psyche. Where is Japan? Where is the public attitude to Japanese defense right now, Ian? How do people feel? I think it is changing. The problem is that the people who wanted to revise Article 9 of the Constitution up until now have almost entirely come from the right, from the sort of right wing of the liberal Democratic Party. And that was unacceptable to most Japanese, partly because they like being a pacifist nation, but partly because it was the right that always argued that Japan should be able to change its constitution because it didn't really have anything to apologize for in the past during the war, for what they did during the war. There's always been things will only change in Japan once there is a change of government and similar arguments start coming from the center left. That hasn't happened so far. But I do think that more and more people, especially the people under 60, are beginning to think that it's time for Japan to rethink the post-war order. So in opinion polls about revising the Constitution, there's a lot going on. It's closer now to more than 50% of the people who might be sympathetic to it. So there is a change. And again, a lot depends, obviously, on what happens in North Korea and China, but a lot depends on the United States as well. For people who may not understand this in the same depth that you do, can you just explain what Article 9 is, and when we're talking about revising it, revisiting it, what we're talking about? Article 9, which was written by Americans after World War II, actually bans any kind of military force. Japan was not supposed to have any kind of army. And the Japanese were perfectly happy with that. I mean, most Japanese were sick and tired of war, and sick and tired of being bossed around by military people, and people on the right who were sort of very pro-business and were happy for the Americans to take care of this while they rebuilt their industries and their wealth. The first people to regret the pacifist Constitution of Japan were actually the Americans. It was Vice President Nixon who first said, when he was vice president under Eisenhower, who first said the Americans had made a mistake. And Americans, I think, at least of Nixon's persuasion, would quite like for the Japanese to revise their Constitution. It was the Japanese themselves who then didn't want to do this. But a compromise was struck, and they have their so-called self-defense forces. At first it was called a police force, then it was a self-defense force, which is a fairly formidable army. But it couldn't use any kind of force outside Japan, and that too has been watered down a little bit under Prime Minister Abe, so that they can do a little bit more than just provide blankets. But, you know, Article 9 still stands. And as long as Japan could depend on the United States, it probably would continue to stand for a long time. Takeichi has now put through legislation to create an intelligence service, which I think is a huge sort of psychological step. I'd certainly been talking to the Japanese quite a long time ago about this issue, and So that's important and the general The JDF is, I guess, in transposition, as you say, from having been these local defense forces to being a proper military. But the intelligence recreation is a new step and is going ahead, and they're putting the various bits of government that did something akin to intelligence collection into a single organization. But what's actually happening with the JDF? Because one of the issues which I always found surprising was given the sophistication of the Japanese industry, they didn't really have an armaments industry. Or if they did, it wasn't very good at building a sophisticated kit. I mean, where is Japan now in relation to that issue? Well, I'd be bluffing if I claimed a great expertise in this, but from what I've been reading, they are gearing up to Mitsubishi and others to building more sophisticated stuff. And that started under Abe, who. Who was her great mentor. He was really the one who began talking about this seriously and including having an intelligence service. And there was quite a lot of opposition to it, again, because of that Japanese and German allergy to having security services snooping on people and that kind of thing. It brings back bad memories. And the fact that Abe was the grandson of a war criminal, essentially, whom he was always trying to defend, made it difficult. But I think Takaichi is popular, and I think she could be successful where Abe was not. And so I think both in terms of developing an intelligence agency, beefing up the military, and producing arms that can now be exported to some extent. Again, I think that goes back to Abe. It does mean that they'll start producing better stuff. You talked a little bit, Ian, about the nuclear question earlier. Can you give us a bit of context on how people in Japan feel about that? Whether they feel, you know, this tension about whether or not the United States would really be there for them, whether they are willing to wait out Trump, or whether there is really a sort of a demand now to rethink the position on nuclear. Well, I don't think it's openly stated. And certainly, you know, even Takaichi wouldn't ever say that, in a speech. And there is quite an allergy, again, for obvious reasons, against nuclear power. And the idea of we are a pacifist nation, we know what war is, we're going to show the world that, you know, there is a path to peace. And the symbol of that, of course, is Hiroshima, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And so there is tremendous, I think, emotional opposition to nuclear armament. And they could take this attitude and feel even slightly morally smug about it, as long as the Americans took care of nuclear defense. But I think that could change very quickly. And I think Takaichi realizes it could change very quickly. I mean, of course, the short-term tactic is to kick the can down the road and hope that they can, that, you know, Trump will be gone in two years. And everything will be the way it used to be. But just as is the case in Europe, I don't think things will be the way they used to be. I think there's tremendous distrust of America now. You don't know who they're going to elect. To pretend that things will just go back to what they were, I think would be very naive. And many Japanese and no doubt Europeans realize this. Ian, can we go back to Germany? And I think, in a way, the question has a certain relevance in relation to Japan. If the firewall in German politics were to break down and the AFD were to become so large that it forms the government, the whole question of German rearmament then takes on a rather different aspect if you view Germany within a European context. And obviously, there will be, let's say, intellectuals in France worrying about this aspect of European political direction. And similarly, I think in the UK, we would be pretty concerned if that were the case. I mean, so the sort of stability of the firewall remains rather important conceptually whilst Germany rearms. But it seems to me it's beginning to look very fragile. How do you, so in terms. How do you interpret that? Yes, I think that's right. If Europe is going to have a stronger defense policy that is less dependent on the United States, that would depend very much on Franco-German cooperation, presumably, because they are the two main powers of the EU. France is nuclear armed. And without full cooperation between French and German industries and so on, it would be very difficult to see how Europe could be a force on its own. One of the impediments to this is that the French don't trust the Germans necessarily. And certainly, they're worried that Rheinmetall and other German manufacturers will start to dominate this at the cost of French interests. But I think they also, there is this residual distrust of what could happen in Germany, what the Germans have done in the past, and a fear of too much German power. And I think it's a legitimate fear. And the dilemma, I think, in Germany politically, and that's not only true of Germany, is that you can have a firewall, but if the party that you don't want to have in government becomes too big, and you simply gang up on them every time, that could make the political situation even worse, because the people who vote for these parties then will feel excluded, that it's not democratic. It'll undermine the trust in democratic institutions and the system itself, and possibly make things even worse. I suppose the only thing one could hope for, if the AFD were ever to form a government, and they probably couldn't do it on their own, they'd have to have some kind of coalition. But if they do, one would have to hope that it would end up in a kind of Maloney-type situation where reality will force them to be a little, more moderate, and cooperate with other countries in the EU and Britain, and so on. - Just to follow up on that, you could have a Rassemblement National Le Pen-AFD axis in Europe, which would make, politically and militarily, actually, Europe look rather different at a crucial time for, let's say, European security, including the UK's security. I mean, that, I think, is a worrying scenario. - It's deeply worrying. What do you think would happen if such a thing came to pass, and you had a right-wing populist government in France, and in Germany, and in the United States? How would that affect relations between Europe and the US? Because then you'd have three governments in the US and the two main powers of Europe who'd all be on the same wavelength. - I think that's a very hard prediction to make. Clearly, then, it would give momentum to Trump's views of Russia. I think that's the most, I think that's the most worrying aspect. Maybe you'd have a more unified approach to, as it were, an aggressive China, but you're looking at almost at a complete rejig of international security, if you, as it were, follow that through to its logic. I guess I would say that I regard Trump largely as an aberration, and I think that, you know, after his presidency, I'm not saying US politics will return to the norm, they won't, but they'll certainly swing back into a place which maybe is more acceptable to the Europeans than they are at present. I don't know whether you agree with that. - No, I think that is true, but I do think we're seeing the end of Pax Americana. - Oh, I definitely agree with that. - And that whoever gets elected after Trump, that it's not going to go back to the sort of post-war deal that was struck, which also depended so much on the Cold War. It's probably time that large and powerful countries like Japan, South Korea, Western Europe, took care of themselves more. And so, one way or another, Europeans and East Asians have to deal with this, whether it's Trump or anybody else. - So that's the positive aspect of the end of Pax Americana, in that we become-- - Yes. - More self-reliant in terms of our own defense. And we build alliances which are not US-dependent. I mean, obviously, in Europe, a military alliance between France, Germany, and the UK would be highly desirable within the context of NATO. And we're going in that direction, but not fast enough. - I was gonna say, Ian, just we're in the final few moments, and I think there's a lot of interest in the history and the context here. And I think we've covered the modern moment quite well. So if we can go back-- just to zoom out a little bit and just talk a little bit, just to end about the way that the history of these two kind of countries influences them today, I think that would be a great place to wrap. So can you take us through how in Japan and in Germany, the history of these two countries, their position in World War II, their reaction after it, can you take us through how much that still influences the decisions they are making today when it comes to defence and alliances and where they see themselves in the world? Well, I think there is still some influence in both countries, but it's certainly growing less and less. And my generation, I was born in December 1951, so I was still very much raised in the Netherlands, so, you know, the aftermath of Nazi occupation, raised in the shadow of World War II. So everything, our outlook on the world is completely different. Completely shaped by what happened in World War II. I think people, my children and my grandchildren or grandchild, are not affected in the same way. And I think that's true in Germany. I think it's true in Japan. I think there is even a reaction amongst people of school age in both countries that are getting tired of being told that they should feel guilty for a past that is very remote to them. As I said earlier, that it's especially the younger generation, in Japan, that is much more open to revising the pacifist constitution shows that the, we cannot rely on war memories and slogans like "never again" and so on to influence policies for very much longer. West Germany was different from East Germany. Guilt and taking responsibility for the Nazi past was much more promoted in West Germany than in East Germany. And the rise of the AFD, of course, has, is not exclusively East German, but it's strongly East German. And so that also is diluting the effect that World War II has had on public opinion for several generations. How is the AFD using Germany's history to its own advantage? Using it as a narrative? Well, I think they're very consciously promoting the notion that Germans should be proud of their history. And that as one of them, I think once said, the Holocaust was just a little speck of bird, a bird dropping in a long and proud and glorious history, and people should stop dwelling on the past. And, and that is popular with a lot of people. And especially, again, with East Germans who were also made to feel, after the end of the Cold War, made to feel inferior to West Germans. So there is a strong sense of humiliation in those who were left behind in East Germany. The brightest and the best hightailed it to the West very quickly. And those who stayed behind feel humiliated. And humiliation is the most dangerous ground, I think, for politics anywhere. It leads to resentment, to thirst for revenge, etc. We know that from the aftermath in Germany of World War I. We know it in many, many different countries. I think that is being exploited by the AFD very effectively, that sense of humiliation. And is there anything similar in Japan? No, I would not say so. I don't think that the Japanese are in a tremendously resentful mood. And Japan has been dominated ever since the war, unlike South Korea, since it became a democracy, but has been dominated by one conservative coalition party. One conservative party, really. And that's bad in the sense that you need changes of government for a democracy to function in a healthy way. In some ways, it's been good because they absorbed like a sponge all those, the sort of the bad aspects of right-wingism. The right-wing politics, the revanchism, the resentments, the xenophobia, etc. So there isn't really an AFD in Japan. There are people whose thinking might be close to the AFD, but they're inside the Liberal Democratic Party. And I think that's the difference with Germany. Well, the only point I think I would like to make is I think the importance now, particularly to the UK, of our bilateral relations with both Germany and Japan. I mean, Japan is clearly a favoured partner, if one looks almost anywhere else in the world, post-Brexit. So that relationship has developed significantly. The other thing about Germany is the potential, you know, for a closer military relationship, a bilateral relationship, which we always, ironically, we've always had with France since the end of World War II. So the militaries get on extremely well, but not so much with Germany. But at the same time, what I think concerns me about Germany is, as we've already discussed, the sort of instability of its internal politics. You know, Merz arrives in power, looks like a great prospect, but is already in a very weak position politically and struggling to stay afloat. So, Ian, I think we always close on this podcast by asking a question or a version of this question to our guests. And I suppose the one for you is, what is the one decision that you are watching out for regarding Germany or Japan's military build-up? What's the sort of moment that, in your mind, in the next couple of days or weeks or months or maybe even years, that people should be aware of? I can't barely think of anything in the next few days or months or weeks in those countries. I think my mind really is what's happening in Brazil. You're throwing a curveball. That's hugely important to the entire American continent and might have consequences outside as well. But in Germany, it's the question how long Merz will last. Yeah, that is definitely something that we will keep an eye on here on the podcast. And no doubt our listeners will, too. Ian, it's been great having you on. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. It was a pleasure. Ian, thank you. Well, Sir Richard, I learned quite a lot in that conversation, I have to say. I mean, I didn't live through this period of history, obviously. I've learned it from books. I've been in school. But I found that a really engaging discussion, which I suppose sets a lot of context for what's happening now. What stood out for you? Well, I think it was refreshing, as you say, to sit down and talk about bigger picture stuff rather than day-to-day events. I know we started off with a day-to-day event. Well, what I mean was the issue of the arrest of my former colleague who these strategic shifts politically in countries as important as Japan and Germany and try to plug those in to globalism or let's say global politics and understand what the consequences and the significance might be and I think Ian isn't only a journalist he's much more than that he's a historian so in fact we were having a different quality of discussion with him which I found enlightening and important I'm older than he is I was born in I was born in 1945 so I mean in terms of what we were talking about I'm very familiar with a lot of the content in fact I'm very familiar because much of my career oriented around issues like post-war Germany and then the anomalies in our relationship with Japan and why Japan was important but they were not global political players and couldn't be because of their constitution so all of that I'm very familiar with but I think to do a podcast on the emerging differences and why this is so important is very apposite at the moment and what came out which I think is a really important point which he made at the end which is the pressure on countries like Japan, Germany, South Korea not to to rely on the United States any longer and for them to start developing not just their independence as global political players but their military and intelligence capabilities as well. Yeah I thought that too I mean there were a couple of things that really stood out for me I I'm always interested in this idea that countries retain this sense of guilt about the decisions of previous generations and how long you should or you can hold on to that that feeling of having done something wrong and to hear Ian talk about in both countries really but maybe to a greater extent in Germany a feeling that actually it's time to stop feeling guilty now this is not our decision it was not our fault and how that drives politics especially when you come to talk about the AFD but more generally too and the idea that humiliation is the most dangerous kind of politics that really struck a chord with me I really am always interested in that how how the psyche of a nation drives its decision making but also from both of you the notion that Japan is the country most well equipped to develop a nuclear weapon and if it chose to do that it would be able to do that within a pretty short time frame that then i guess makes the question of president trump and america and where america decides to put its power and its heft and its might it really does put that into a very different and quite worrying context i think yeah and you know japan sits beside china the whole issue of future foreign affairs is how to accommodate china and create a relationship or an international relationship where the security functions in a positive manner and japan is going to be an absolutely key player partly because it was industrial power and partly because it's geopolitical position and partly because as we've discussed it's changing very fundamentally in its attitude to as it were yeah way to position and influence on the world stage yeah it's placing the world maybe not quite in the same spot as germany yet but maybe not a million miles away either great episode hopefully you enjoyed listening to it as much as we enjoyed talking and we always hope that that's the case thank you very much for listening today and you can join us every thursday for new episodes or you can subscribe to one decision on youtube so you won't miss anything at all and you can leave us comments there if you'd like to or you can email hello at one decision.com we read all of them and we do love to get your thoughts so do send those in there is more on one decision.com too if commentaries and explainers are your thing i'm kate mccann i was joined by sir richard dear love for this episode thank you very much for listening hank joined bj's wholesale club the day he became a father of 30 i coach football now coach hank saves up to 25 off grocery store prices 30 pounds of pasta three cases of protein bars 75 sports drinks and that's just pre-game he knows teamwork and bj's knows savings this is your home coach home of the save. 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