Japan rethinks its defense posture

A national security advisory committee to Japan's Prime Minister has apparently made some radical suggestions about reforming Japan's defense posture. Among them: rethinking the basic concept of Japan's military as a defensive force, rethinking the ban on nuclear weapons entering the country, and easing the nation's ban on weapons exports. The Asahi Shimbum writes:

Ever since the National Defense Program Guidelines were established in 1976, the premise was one of restraint--the nation would "not directly confront a threat, but maintain a bare minimum defense force so that it would not become a destabilizing factor itself." However, the report, in a drastic policy switch, says Japan should become a country that confronts threats. What has changed? The report points to the waning of U.S. military supremacy, the modernization of China's military and North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile development.

Japan's status as a great economic power without a military to match was useful during the Cold War but it's increasingly untenable in an area of emerging great Asian powers.

(AP Photo)