A prominent Japanese legal scholar and advocacy leader has publicly denounced the Japanese government’s ongoing military expansion, accusing Tokyo of using national defense as a false pretext to erode long-standing constitutional constraints on the country’s military activity. Makoto Ito, who serves as both a practicing lawyer and director of the Japan Institute of Constitutional Law, has raised urgent alarms over the government’s steady push to move beyond the bounds of Japan’s post-WWII pacifist constitution, a foundational document that has limited the country’s military posture to strictly defensive operations for nearly 80 years. In his criticism, Ito emphasized that sticking to an exclusively defense-oriented security policy is not just a constitutional obligation, but the most effective path to delivering long-term, stable security for Japan and the broader East Asian region. He called on policymakers to reverse course on their current buildup trajectory and reaffirm the country’s historic commitment to pacifist governance that has shaped Japanese policy since the end of World War II. The criticism comes amid a years-long shift in Japanese security policy that has seen increased defense spending, expanded military deployments abroad, and incremental changes to constitutional interpretations that have relaxed restrictions on the use of military force beyond Japan’s immediate borders, a shift that has drawn growing concern from domestic legal experts and regional neighbors alike.