Shinsaku Yanai

Shinsaku Yanai (柳内伸作, Yanai Shinsaku, born 1947, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan) is a Japanese writer who formerly held the rank of major in the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force. He is a graduate of Tokyo Keizai University (東京経済大学) and the Ground Self-Defense Force Research School (陸上自衛隊調査学校), where he took courses in psychological warfare. In 1992, while still employed by the SDF as an instructor of military history, he published an article in Japanese magazine Shūkan Bunshun in which he suggested that a coup was necessary to clean up corruption in the Japanese political establishment. The incident was described as "an extreme source of embarrassment" for the SDF; the public were more amused than outraged by the article, and even some of Yanai's colleagues anonymously referred to him as a "crackpot". In response, the SDF dismissed Yanai from his post. He was the first officer in any branch of the Self Defense Forces to be dismissed in response to his authorship of a newspaper article.