Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is no stranger to historical controversy. Back in 2001 he pressured national broadcaster NHK to revise a documentary about the judgment of an international people's tribunal regarding the war responsibility of Emperor Hirohito (posthumously known as Emperor Showa). And in 2007 he riled Koreans with his remarks quibbling over the level of coercion used in recruiting so-called wartime comfort women on the day that Koreans commemorate the 1919 uprising against Japanese colonial rule.

As a member of the Association to Consider the Future Path for Japan and History Education founded in 1997, Abe wants to promote an exonerating narrative of Japan's wartime past. But Abe II and his deft handlers understand just how risky it is to unilaterally revise history, and he is now relying on Education Minister Hakubun Shimomura and Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga to do the heavy lifting on airbrushing the past.

There is widespread expectation that if the Liberal Democratic Party which Abe heads wins the Upper House elections in July, thus gaining control of both houses, he will work to remove constitutional constraints on the military.