A silent, bloodless revolution is currently underway that has the potential to rewrite the rules of engagement and fundamentally alter the world order. Two sleeping giants, with massive economic power and unmatched technological superiority but scarred by their own hyper-nationalist and militarist past, are slowly waking up from their slumber to realize their true potential.
If taken to its logical conclusion, this process can alter the fundamental pecking order of the global powers that we have become so used to since the end of the Second World War.
In many ways, the world order of 2025 still reflects the power realities of 1945. The world’s third and fourth largest economies, Germany and Japan, respectively, are not permanent members of the UN Security Council (UNSC). Neither does the world’s most populous country, India, which has the world’s second-largest military force and the fifth-largest economy, find a place in this coveted club of permanent UNSC members.
All five permanent members of the UNSC, who enjoy veto power on everything and can single-handedly block any UN resolution, are the victors of the Second World War: the US, the Soviet Union (Russia now), the UK, France, and China.
Consider, for example, the UK. It is the world’s sixth-largest economy and has an armed force roughly one-tenth the size of the Indian armed forces. According to the Global Firepower Index, the UK has the world’s eighth most powerful military behind India, Japan, and South Korea. And yet, the UK sits in the UNSC.
While reform of the UNSC is an ongoing agenda for which Germany, Japan, India, and Brazil have formed the G4 to support each other’s UNSC bid, Germany and Japan’s lack of global power status also has a lot to do with their internal post-war political consensus.
Germany & Japan: The Two “Sleeping Giants”
Germany and Japan were both part of the Axis powers during the Second World War. Along with Italy, they were the aggressor states that forced the six-year-long Second World War on the world.
During the war, unspeakable atrocities were committed by both sides. Still, as the famous adage goes, “History is written by the Victors,” and only the atrocities of one side are mostly remembered.
Axis powers were blamed for the war, and in the aftermath of the terrible war and the terrible defeat, the Axis powers, especially Germany and Japan, internalized this sense of guilt for the war.
They internalized the guilt that their hyper-nationalist, militarist, and expansionist policies were responsible for the war. Never mind the three centuries of brutal colonialism imposed by the West, particularly by France and the UK, on the whole world.
One can very well argue that what led to the Second World War was the fact that a small handful of Western European nations had colonized the whole world, and recently industrialized countries like Germany, Japan, and Italy wanted their fair share of the colonies. However, that is a debate for another day.
In the face of defeat, Germany and Japan internalized the guilt for starting the war, for bringing forth unspeakable horrors on the whole world, and they sought to cleanse their soul through penance.
The penance included sitting out of the most powerful decision-making body in the post-war world, the UNSC, abandoning all pretensions of being a global power, downsizing their militaries to minuscule levels, expressly rejecting war as a means of expansion, ingraining pacifism in their constitution, and instead focusing their energies on becoming economic power centers.
The 1945 Potsdam Agreement, which ended World War II, called for the “complete disarmament and demilitarization of Germany.” The 1949 West German Constitution expressly forbade “wars of aggression.”
Similarly, after World War II, Japan adopted a pacifist constitution in 1947, with Article 9 renouncing war as a sovereign right and prohibiting the maintenance of military forces, aiming for a peaceful international order.
“Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized,” reads Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution.
Japan, the only victim of a nuclear attack in history, also adopted the “Three Non-Nuclear Principles” of non-possession, non-production, and non-introduction of atomic weapons. Even though all five victors of the Second World War built their nuclear weapons.
Similarly, in 1954, not long after the end of World War II, the first chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Konrad Adenauer, signed an agreement renouncing the production of its own nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons on its territory. In return, Germany was provided with the protection of the US atomic weapons.
Germany maintained this position even after the fall of the Berlin Wall and its reunification in the so-called “Two-Plus-Four Treaty“: No nuclear weapons! On September 12, 1990, the four victorious powers of World War II (the US, the Soviet Union, France, and the UK) stipulated that East and West Germany should be reunified and renounce nuclear weapons.
Economic Powerhouse With No Military Might
Germany and Japan renounced wars of aggression, militaristic societies, and the production of nuclear weapons, but they were both proud countries and technological giants. In the post-war era, they directed the nationalistic impulses of their countries towards becoming economic powerhouses and technology leaders.
Japan, a small island nation with a small population, became the world’s second-largest economy in 1990 after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. During the 1990s, Japan was even briefly the world’s largest economy. Germany was also the world’s third-largest economy between 1990 and 2008 when China overtook it.
Currently, they are the world’s third and fourth-largest economies.
However, despite their economic might and technological advancements, they are not a significant military power.
German armed forces have nearly 185,000 personnel behind Poland, France, Ukraine, and Russia in Europe. Germany does not have its own nuclear weapons, no aircraft carriers, and only six submarines. Similarly, Japan does not have nuclear weapons and is dependent on the US for security guarantees.
A War & A US Election: The Waking Up Of Germany
Germany’s militarization drive has attracted considerable media attention recently. However, this process started at least three years earlier.
On February 27, 2022, three days after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said: “This war is an attack against all the values of a rules-based international order. This war is an attack against peaceful human coexistence. And it is a war that necessitates the revision of the very tenets of our foreign policy.
“It may be that Germany is today leaving behind a special and unique form of restraint in foreign and security policy. The rules we set ourselves for must not mean that we cannot assume our responsibility. If our world is a different one, then our policy must also be different.”
A few days later, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced that Germany would end its dependence on Russian gas, spend an additional 100 billion euros on its military, and deliver hundreds of anti-tank weapons and Stinger missiles to Ukraine.
This was a clear indication that Germany was finally leaving the baggage of the Second World War behind and entering a new era.
“We are entering a new era,” Scholz told Parliament. “And that means that the world we now live in is not the one we knew before.”
Scholz also promised to spend more than 2 % of Germany’s GDP on defense. Since Germany is the largest economy in Europe, it made a big difference.
However, this change gathered steam after Donald Trump returned to power in the US. In March, Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz announced hundreds of billions of euros for defense. Germany is already NATO’s largest spender in dollar terms after the US.
On March 18, German lawmakers voted to change the Constitution and allow a massive increase in defense and infrastructure spending. The law will exempt spending on defense and security from Germany’s strict debt rules and create a €500bn (US$547 billion) infrastructure fund.
Germany is also working to increase its armed forces. It currently has some 185,000 armed personnel. Gen Carsten Breuer of the Bundeswehr feels Germany needs at least 100,000 more soldiers. He also insists a return to military service is “absolutely” necessary.
“You won’t get this 100,000 without one or other model of conscription. We don’t have to determine now what model brings them. For me, it’s only important that we get the soldiers in,” the general was quoted as saying by the BBC.
Germany, which already has some of Europe’s biggest military contractors, such as Rheinmetall AG, Diehl Stiftung & Co. KG, Airbus SE, and Krauss-Maffei Wegmann GmbH & Co. KG, is also planning to develop a defense industrial complex.
German automobile manufacturer Volkswagen is ready to start producing military equipment. Germany is Europe’s most industrialized country, and if Berlin helps develop an Indigenous military-industrial complex, it can unleash a lot of untapped German industrial power.
The Rise Of The Dragon & Japan’s Awakening
China’s military muscle-flexing in the South China Sea, territorial disputes with China, North Korea’s expansion of its nuclear and missile arsenal, Japan’s falling out with Russia in the wake of the Ukraine crisis, and Donald Trump’s return to the White House are similarly pushing Japan to shed its post-war inhibitions and adopt a more pro-active defense role in the Asia-Pacific.
While all these factors played a part, the process in Japan also started many years earlier. Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe played an important role in it. Abe has raised the prospect of the country hosting US nuclear weapons facilities on Japanese soil, boosted defense spending, and called for an assertive foreign and security policy.
Under Abe, Japan passed legislation allowing the Japan Self-Defense Forces to engage in overseas combat missions. Essentially, this bill allows Japan’s armed forces to help defend its allies, like America, even if Japan itself isn’t under attack. The Japanese Constitution, following the devastation from the war, previously limited Japan’s forces to self-defense within its borders.
In December 2024, Japan approved a 9.4 percent increase in defense spending for FY2025. This marked another record figure for the 11th year in a row for Japan’s national defense budget. Japan, which has historically spent less than 1 % of its GDP on defense, has also promised to raise it to 2 % of its GDP by 2027.
This defense spending hike was part of the Defense Buildup Program, which outlines US$273 billion in defense spending over the five-year period through FY2027.
Japan is also building alliances with China’s adversaries. It has developed and promoted military ties with several countries in and beyond the Indo-Pacific region. It has strengthened security cooperation with Australia and India—both members of Quad alongside Japan and the USA—through high-level dialogues, joint military exercises, intelligence sharing, and mutual access to each other’s military facilities.
In December 2022, Japan announced a joint program with Italy and the United Kingdom to develop a new sixth-generation combat aircraft—the Global Combat Air Program (GCAP). Japan is developing two hypersonic weapon concepts: the Hypersonic Cruise Missile (HCM) and the Hyper Velocity Gliding Projectile (HVGP), as well as long-range missiles.
Last month, Japan’s Ministry of Defense (MOD) announced that it had successfully conducted flight tests for its island defense hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV). Four test launches were conducted at a site in California, with one launch in August 2024, two in November 2024, and one in January 2025.
Japan’s new 10kW-class high-power laser electronic warfare (EW) vehicle recently entered service to counter aerial and missile threats, including hostile unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and low-altitude missile systems.
Conclusion
Japan and Germany are major economic powerhouses and technology leaders with huge untapped industrial potential. They both have a strong hyper-nationalist and militaristic past.
In the past few years, these countries have invested in novel military equipment, boosted defense spending, and removed Constitutional roadblocks on expanding defense spending or deploying troops in foreign conflicts.
Both Tokyo and Berlin are leaving their post-World War inhibitions behind. There are signs that the two countries can also rethink their nuclear doctrines in the coming years if circumstances demand it.
A concerted effort by these countries to expand their armed forces and develop a military-industrial complex can have far-reaching consequences for the current world order. Both Germany and Japan are sleeping giants that have adopted pacifist constitutions and imposed self-restraints on their power ambitions.
However, the war in Europe, China’s muscle-flexing, and Donald Trump’s unpredictability are forcing these giants to let go of their inhibitions and adopt a proactive security policy. They have the economic might, industrial base, and technological acumen to boost defense spending massively and develop an indigenous military-industrial complex within a few years.
The awakening of Germany and Japan can fundamentally alter the global order.
- Sumit Ahlawat has over a decade of experience in news media. He has worked with Press Trust of India, Times Now, Zee News, Economic Times, and Microsoft News. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Media and Modern History from The University of Sheffield, UK.
- He can be reached at ahlawat.sumit85 (at) gmail.com
