Since the Diet enacted antiterrorism legislation enabling the Self-Defense Forces to provide logistic support to the U.S.-led war efforts in Afghanistan, there have been mounting calls in Japan for expansion of the SDF's activities abroad. These moves defy Japan's war-renouncing Constitution.
Under the new law, Japan has for the first time dispatched Maritime Self-Defense Force ships to noncombat areas surrounding the war zone.
The government is also intent on revising the law for Japanese cooperation with United Nations peacekeeping operations by lifting existing limits on SDF participation and relaxing standards on the use of arms. I have strong reservations about attempts to change the long-standing pacifist policy that the postwar Japanese governments have upheld.