JAPAN’S MILITARY MODERNIZES: Jim Dunnigan analyzes the long process. North Korean nukes and China’s expanding power have added impetus to Japanese military modernization. Yet Japan clung to canned rations until this year.

The reforms extended to many rather mundane aspects of military life. For example in early 2016 Japan finally agreed to replace its canned combat rations with the plastic pouch (MRE, Meal Ready to Eat) system pioneered by the United States. Japan was the last holdout for canned combat rations in East Asia…For decades Japan got the new weapons but stubbornly clung to the use of canned combat rations. Partly this was due to love of tradition, partly because the Japanese, like most East Asians, are very serious about food and partly because of their post-World War II constitution Japanese troops were forbidden to get involved in wars or peacekeeping operations overseas. Without real combat zone experience there was no realistic examples of how superior MREs were to their older canned counterparts.