Tokyo Remembers How To Rattle A Saber

"...Yesterday, however, the Japanese government made it clear that if the international community will not neutralize North Korea, Tokyo may well do the job itself.

Specifically, said Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe, Japan is considering modifications to its post-World War II Constitution, which renounced the right to use force to settle international disputes.

"If we accept that there is no other option to prevent an attack . . . there is the view that attacking the launch base of the guided missiles is within the constitutional right of self-defense. We need to deepen discussion" of such an option, Abe said.

Rough translation: Tokyo won't permit North Korea, with its highly unpredictable leadership, to develop the means to destroy Japan.

And if that means modifying a Constitution that perhaps made sense in 1947, but no longer does - well, so be it.

Japan, during the Cold War, prospered under the U.S. nuclear umbrella. Indeed, the country developed the world's third-largest economy, behind America and China, unencumbered by the need to defend itself in any meaningful way.

China, the Soviet Union and the Koreas, in particular, had no desire to see a militarily resurgent Japan. Given the history, this was understandable.

But the world has turned many times since the Berlin Wall fell. Security imperatives have changed for all concerned. And - most important - Japan has clearly left its imperialist past behind.

Is it time for Japan to become, once again, a full-fledged member of the community of nations - that is, able to develop the means to project military power?

On one level, the point is moot.

Despite its constitutional constraints, Japan has developed a powerful navy, second only to America's. And its own rocketry skills - ostensibly limited to launching satellites - could be put to military purposes virtually overnight."

Ahem. Every nation that has tried to retro-fit commercial payloads with military ones has run into the inevitable failures that happen when blow-up-things take the place of the benign. Yes, if we lent a hand the Japanese could be up and running in 3 or 4 years, but don't tell China or the Norks that, okay? They must believe that Japan's anger can generate an immediate payback to Norkishness should Lil Kimmy drift even farther into insanity. In reality, we send Japan everything it needs to wonk Kimmy's childish fireworks program, and editorials around the world focus upon how quickly the Japanese responded to this threat.

Hey. That's what friends are for.