Soon after the Islamic State's brutal murder in January of Japanese hostages Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called for the country's "biggest reform" of its military posture since the end of World War II.
Abe wants Japan to become a "normal" country again, with the capacity to defend its interests and citizens wherever they are threatened. But how should his government go about it?
Even for a Japanese public that still generally supports their country's post-war pacifism, the hostage crisis was unsettling, not least because it highlighted Japan's military impotence.