LONDON — Sixty-two years after Japan surrendered to the United States at the end of World War II, many things have changed, but not Japan's subordination to the U.S. Despite having the world's second-biggest economy, Japan is still a pygmy on the international stage, and its foreign policy is still unswerving devotion to an alliance that was imposed on the country half a century ago by the American occupation forces.

It is the deeply conflicted views of the Japanese about this foreign policy that have brought down Prime Minister Shinzo Abe after less than a year in office. His Liberal Democratic Party still has a majority in the Diet's Lower House and will choose a successor from its own ranks Sunday, but this may mark the end of the LDP's half-century monopoly on power.

In his resignation speech, Abe explained that he was quitting "to pave the way for ruling and opposition parties to work together to approve Tokyo's naval mission in support of the U.S.-led operation in Afghanistan."