Japanese Military to leave Iraq

You don't hear a lot about the Japanese Military these days. That's because they officially do not have one.

After WW2, the new Japanese Constitution contained a provision that "forever renounces war" and banned having a military.
However, they do have a Self Defense Force (SDF).



In fact, Japan spends over 40 billion dollars a year on its military, er, Self Defense Forces. Only the US, China, Russia and the UK spend more.

The operation in Iraq will now be coming to an end, but was quite significant: it was the first time that the SDF was involved in operations in a combat area.



It will be interesting to see further developments.