This is John Batchelor, speaking with Grant Newsom, Colonel Grant Newsom, United States Marine Corps retired.

He's in the Pacific talking about the proposal between Prime Minister Kishita of Japan and the President of the United States

to work together, to cooperate, to train forces together in anticipation of the Chinese attack.

The doubts, however, are immediate.

How and why.

Here we address the issue of the Japanese Constitution that my understanding mandates the

self-defense force, a good reason not to work with the U.S. on exercises that are meant to deal with a war and that

would require offensive as well as defensive. However, Grant very carefully analyzes that statement and says excuse excuse, his Grant Newsom, author of

when China attacks about the proposal that Japan and the U.S. worked together, train their

forces together, interoperability, joint command. But what about the Constitution?

Oh, it did for some years, but it's really been at least 20 years

when that was no longer, really, of any hindrance.

The Constitution has always been used as something of a monopoly get out of jail free card by the Japanese.

So whenever they don't want to do something, they say the Constitution won't let us.

Well, the Constitution, in this plain wording wouldn't even

allow them to have their so-called self-defense force. They practically not even be

allowed to have a police force if you read the language but it's been reinterpreted out of any plain meaning with American, you know, go along for decades, almost as soon as it was written.

But the Americans have never made an issue of this

and have never, except for the navies once again,

but they've never tried to do what was necessary to get the Japanese to be able to operate with them like a real partner.

And the Japanese were kind of happy to go along with us,

the civilian Japanese were, because it's money

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