The security debate triggered by North Korea's Oct. 9 declared nuclear test just keeps churning in Tokyo's political nerve center.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Politicians are now beginning to question some of Japan's fundamental postwar security policies, including its long-standing ban on nuclear weapons and the ban on collective defense, key legal restraints that strictly limit the nation's military to defending only Japanese territory.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>The government has steadfastly denied the nation will go nuclear, and the majority of lawmakers likewise have ruled out this option.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>But the policy chief of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party broached the subject, as did the foreign minister briefly, and some observers are welcoming the heated debate over national security.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>The public is just starting to openly address security because sentiment against the military is still ingrained in the nation's collective psyche, a carry-over from the wartime debacle, former Defense Agency chief Fukushiro Nukaga said.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>'We have been in an abnormal situation because –

security debate has been lacking. (We) have just come to think about how we should cope with various developments in the real world, as people in other countries do," Nukaga said.

The long taboo of discussing going nuclear was most recently broached by Shoichi Nakagawa, LDP policy chief. Nakagawa said the public should debate whether Japan should develop atomic weapons in response to the North Korean threat.

Nakagawa's remark made headlines around the world and set off an intense barrage of media coverage that has lasted over a month.

Government officials, however, remain steadfast in upholding the nation's nonnuclear policy.