Military history of Japan maintains a powerful defense force today, its Constitution, originally drawn under the guidelines of General Douglas MacArthur in 1945, formally renounces war and the use of military force in aggressive ways. Japan also maintains a policy against the exporting of military hardware. In September 2015, the Liberal Democratic Party under the leadership of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, reinterpreted the Constitution, allowing Japan to use military force in assistance of its allies. The legality of these changes has been questioned by many academics and citizens. From 1867, Japan requested various Western military missions in order to help Japan to modernize its
National debt of Japan Noda of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) - passed a bill in June 2012 to double the national consumption tax to 10%. This increased the tax to 8% in April 2014. The originally scheduled 10% tax increase to be implemented in October 2015 has been delayed until at least October 2019. The goal of this increase was to halt the growth of the public debt by 2015, although reducing the debt would require further measures. The DPJ subsequently lost control of the Diet in late 2012, and Noda's successor Shinzo Abe, of the Liberal Democratic Party, implemented the "Abenomics"