The government of Japan is seeking to abolish Japan’s long-standing peace clause, which has served as a “regional and international peace mechanism,” in favor of bolstering the country’s military and opening its doors to the international arms trade.

Following a vote Sunday when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party gained the largest portion of Upper House seats, Japan Times reports that one of the prime minister’s initial goals will be to revise the constitution “so it only requires a simple majority of 51 percent” before an amendment is put to a national referendum, rather than the standing two-thirds majority.

With this power, he would then be able to alter the war-renouncing peace clause, Article 9, “with a simple coin flip vote.”

Saying that it “isn’t a secret for anybody,” Akira Kawasaki and Céline Nahory of the Tokyo-based NGO Peace Boat note that it has always been one of the top priorities of the leading political parties, particularly the Liberal Democratic Party, to amend the constitution in favor of allowing Japan to exercise “collective military action.”

Article 9 of the constitution “is the famous peace clause, which renounces war as a means of settling international disputes and prohibits the maintenance of armed forces and other war potential,” they explain. “It’s not only a provision of the Japanese law. It also acts as a regional and international peace mechanism that has served as the foundation for collective security for the entire Asia Pacific region.”

They continue:

Further, according to an official source speaking to Japan Times Monday, the prime minister is in the “process of reviewing” the 1967 arms embargo enacted following the Cold War, saying it is “out of sync with the global trend toward sharing technologies and jointly developing weapons.”