Plantagenet,

Is Nakatani still working toward such a capability? I do not know. As for the missle defense, perhaps Japan is cooperating in the research and development of the US missile defense (the project of shooting down an enemy's flying missile with a missile.)

Regards.
Mich

Hi Michi

Submarine launched Tomahawk missiles are something the US and UK have used in the Middle East though only against countries with weak or no real military forces.

I had a look at Tomahawks in relation to Japan and unearthed http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/09/japan-us-military-weapons_n_5794414.html .

If North Korea holds more threatening nuclear tests and Japan-tailored-missile tests then the relevance of first and/or second "strike capability" would no doubt increase.

Something the US and Japan are no doubt acutely conscious of.

Pete

An interesting issue, February 25, 2015: "In a rare foray into a controversial political issue, Japan’s Crown Prince Naruhito, 55, told reporters on the occasion of his birthday that he felt that it was critical for Japan to “look back humbly on the past.”

Naruhito, heir apparent to Emperor Akihito, noted that while ”[he himself] did not experience the war … it is important today, when memories of the war are fading, to look back humbly on the past and correctly pass on the tragic experiences and history Japan pursued from the generation which experienced the war to those without direct knowledge.”

The statement, which will be scrutinized by political leaders in China and South Korea, was read by Japanese observers and netizens as a rebuke to calls by conservative Japanese politicians to present a sanitized and sympathetic version of Japan’s history to the public and in textbooks, sidelining wartime atrocities committed by Japan."

see http://thediplomat.com/2015/02/japans-crown-prince-rebukes-historical-revisionism/

Plantagenet,
Thank you.
Mr. Panda says, "The Imperial House continues to excercise a major influence over Japanese public opinion." No, the House does not have a political influence. Since the Big Bang for Japan, which was in 660 B.C., Japanese emperors were impotent. Akihito, the present emperor, took dislike as the Crown Prince to Nakasone, prime minister from 1982 to 1987.

Kant was in his cozy, dogmatic slumber as all German philosophers were. He did not realize it until he was shocked by David Hume's scepticism. I would like to say some things, out of a thousand things, that I hope will be surprising, because, unless we are surprised if not shocked, our thinking takes the course of least resistance.

Hirohito was politically impotent like his father, Yoshihito, and grandfather. His father was mentally feeble, so he was Regent Prince. The powers that be did not encourage the people to know Yoshihito's mental disorder, but people knew it. They were not punished, let alone jailed, because they talked about it.
When I was a junior or senior high school student, I knew that President Franklin Roosevelt could hardly walk on his own feet because he was struck by polio. I thought it added to his greatness and that Americans knew it. It was a little surprise when
I was reading Henry Kissinger's On China (or it may have been his Diplomacy.) That fact was hidden as much as possible from the public. I looked for the part,in vain, so that I could quote it verbatim.

In pre-war Japan censorship was conducted like "She hated him. She cried, 'You, son .. . ......" Each Chinese character or Japanese letter deleted was shown by one black mark. In post-war Japan under the Allies' occupation the censorship was done like "She was in love. She said, 'I adore you." You could not have guessed any part was changed or deleted. To be continued.

Plantagenet,

In pre-war days in Japan, Americans and Englishmen were the most popular foreign people. Hirohito was an Anglo-Saxonphile like most Japanese. Deep mistrust of Germany was widely shared in the Japanese leadership, though not by all. "During the war the Japanese could hardly hide their dislike for the haughty Germans. But they liked the French, whom they associated with the achievements of French culture (Robert Guillain, quoted by Ben-Ami Shillony in Politics and Culute in Wartime Japan.)" "Japanese judges tended not to impose severe sentences, in order to enable the offender to correct himself (ibid.)" Compare this, for instance, with China in Ralph Townsend/Ways That Are Dark. The two classic works on fascism or nazism, Emil Lederer/State of the Masses and Sigmund Neumann/Permanent Revolution do not treat Japan as a totalitarian country,etc.

Please read my five comments, as to Hirohito's political impotence, on www.project-syndicate.org/Nouriel Roubini/Global Ground Zero in Asia. I would also like you to read my comment on www.project-syndicate.org/Brahma Chelleney/East Asia's Historical Shackles.

People used to think that the sun went round the earth. Who was the first revisionist that said the earth went round the sun? I do not know if Einstein was a revisionist, but he at least added a lot of new facts to, and modified Newton's theory by introducing relativity.
What I mean is that Japan should be blamed for what it did but not for what it did not do; a lot of fabficated guilts have been put on Japan. Seventy years is some time to look back more detachedly.

Hi Michi

You make observations with great elegance. The Japanese Imperial House appears to have a similar complexity as the many levels of respect for the British Royal Family.

With the wonder that is Wikipedia I also looked at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Taish%C5%8D#Early_life .

Royals make for a complex society as natural people, representatives of polity and conduits to God.

Interesting Japan fought the Anglo countries (US, UK) that Japanese liked while Japan was allied to the disliked Germans in WWII.

The last paragraph of http://thediplomat.com/2015/02/japans-crown-prince-rebukes-historical-revisionism/ indicates:

"Curiously, Abe’s own party, the Liberal Democratic Party, in its most recent proposal for constitutional overhaul, has suggested reverting the emperor’s role back to that of a “head of state,” as during the Meiji era. If the LDP succeeds in its bid to reform the constitution, the party and Japan’s conservatives could face the prospect of Naruhito one day leading the country."

I need to look at your comments:
- www.project-syndicate.org/Nouriel Roubini/Global Ground Zero in Asia
- www.project-syndicate.org/Brahma Chelleney/East Asia's Historical Shackles
- and other references.
tomorrow because I have a guest visiting today.

Regards

Pete