Japan Maritime Self Defense Force Japanese warships depart Tokyo harbor at the start of an around-the-globe training cruise last month.

TOKYO — North Korea seems to have put its missiles away for now, but Japan’s conservative government wants the option to blast them away the next time they’re pointed in Tokyo’s direction. It’s a satisfying idea, but maybe not a good one.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party is compiling a new set of defense guidelines that would allow Japan’s armed forces, for the first time, to develop offensive capability, and to strike first if an attack appears imminent.

Under Japan’s strictly pacifist constitution, the Self Defense Force is restricted to weaponry and tactics that are deemed defensive in nature. That means no bombers, no cruise or ballistic missiles, no armed drones — and no shooting until shot at.

That could change under the new National Defense Program Guidelines, which are expected to be finished by year’s end.

“What they are basically saying is, ‘When a potential enemy has started attacking us, then we would start offensive operations to take out their missiles, as well as their missile bases,’” says Narushige Michishita, director of the Security and International Studies Program at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, in Tokyo.

North Korea conducted its third nuclear weapons test in February and later placed medium-range ballistic missiles on launch sites facing Japan. The provocative moves were accompanied with the usual threats and invective toward Tokyo, Seoul and Washington. The missiles were removed last month and the crisis seems to have eased, for now.