At any time of the year, evaluating Japan and its military intentions is like looking through a telescope. From one end, everything appears bigger than it actually is. From the other, everything looks smaller.
Now, with the commemorations of the atomic bomb attacks, the war's end and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to Yasukuni Shrine, where 14 Class A war criminals are enshrined as "gods," the division of opinion is even sharper than usual.
From one end of the telescope, Japan, with the world's second-largest military budget, looks like it already is a military power and aims to become a military giant by ultimately arming itself with nuclear weapons. To some, American troops in Japan and the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty are the only "cap on the bottle" that suppresses such a development.