Japan Ground Self-Defense Force

The Japan Ground Self-Defense Force, abbreviated JGSDF and sometimes called the Japanese Army, is the land warfare branch of the Japan Self-Defense Forces and the largest of its three service branches. It was created on 1 July 1954, when the National Safety Force that had grown out of the National Police Reserve was reorganised under the Self-Defense Forces Act, after the Imperial Japanese Army had been dismantled at the end of the Pacific War. Its existence rests on a reading of Article 9 of the 1946 constitution, which was reinterpreted by the Diet in 2015. The force is organised into regional district armies, divisions and brigades, with a Ground Component Command, a rapid deployment regiment and special operations units, and it keeps rapid-reaction and main reserve components. Its recent work includes joint exercises with American, British and Indian forces and a peacekeeping observer posting in the Sinai in 2019.