Allow me to introduce a Japanese word to those unfamiliar with it. It is the verb kobiru, which means "to flatter"; "to curry favor with"; "to play up to"; "to toady to." In more up-to-date parlance, it may be rendered as "to suck up to."
Perhaps there's no more fitting word than this to better characterize today's Japanese stance toward the United States. Indeed, this nation has been turned, willy-nilly, into Kobiru Kokka — the "Suck-up State."
It's not that compromise and softly-softly diplomacy are bad things. Postwar Japanese diplomacy has been grounded on an approach that stresses friendship with all nations and the hard slog of give and take. One of the terms favored by Japanese diplomats and politicians is reisei, which means "cool-headedness" and implies a presence of mind that is calm and collected. It is a quality that Japanese society, which eschews confrontation and diligently seeks common interests in interpersonal relationships, is the perfect breeding ground for.