LOS ANGELES -- Japan is once again at a historical tipping point, what could be called a political ground zero. Japan has been at ground zero two other times in its modern history and both times the outcome was not pretty.
The first time was in the 1860s when the Tokugawa government was crumbling under the weight of bad economics and foreign pressure to open up to the world. That political revolution ushered in the Meiji Era government, which was dedicated to expelling the barbarians and restoring the Emperor. At that time, it opted to follow the Prussian model of government.
The second time Tokyo hit political ground zero was in the 1930s, when it was again on the verge of economic collapse and the military decided to take over the government and form an alliance with Nazi Germany. Fascism was the politics of choice. In both of these cases the collapse of political leadership led to a swing to the right and a go-it-alone brand of Japanese rearmament.