Japan is officially considering building nuclear weapons in response to the North Korean threat. The JSDF role as a self-defence force only is also under questions since Japan has sent troops on international missions since the early 1990's; their last troop deployment was in Iraq. Some Japanese see these deployments as illegal and the nation is split on the issue.
The U.S. has at least 4 nukes in Japan (2 down south in Okinawa, 1 in Yokosuka <USS Kittyhawk> and one up in Hokkaido - this does not include the various nuk-subs operating in Japanese and Chinese coastal waters) so the whole political debate is more a staged event to warn the North Koreans (in actuality, the Chinese as a long term regional competitor) that Japan could obtain Nukes a lot quicker and with a much higher yield then they could.
Troop deployment was at the request of the U.S. but they have all come home now.
The point is, the U.S. wrote the Japanese constitution in a week and included a lot of anti-war measures due to terrible texts (like the
Sword and the Crisanthinum <sp>) which portray Japan as a military culture that needed christian law and order forced onto it. Now that these laws do not benefit U.S. foreign policy, it has been left to the LDP to undo them. In fact, Peace education was pushed onto the Japanese in such a strong way. . .its surprising when we see any aggression here. Ultimately, the larger China gets, the more pressure will be exerted on Japan to militaries. In typical fashion, the Chinese are trying to make up for the fact that they lost 3 modern wars against the Japanese and won none. But thats just my little tick.
