Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party have begun to put amendment of the Constitution at the forefront of their agenda, with specific timetables already discussed for revising the text that has remained unchanged since it took effect in 1947.

They are reportedly seeking to get the Diet to initiate an amendment sometime after the Upper House election in the summer of 2016, so that the revision would be tabled for ratification in a national referendum as early as 2017. What's not yet forthcoming, however, is what they want to achieve by amending the Constitution.

The LDP alone is short of a two-thirds majority in either the Lower or the Upper House — the number required in both Diet chambers to initiate a constitutional amendment, which then needs to be endorsed by a majority of votes in a public referendum. The party therefore is emphasizing cooperation with other parties in its quest to revise the Constitution.

Toward that goal, the LDP is said to be weighing multiple rounds of amendments — limiting the scope of first-round revision to issues on which broad support from other parties can be expected, and leaving more divisive issues, including changing the war-renouncing Article 9, to subsequent rounds.

The LDP's agenda for 2015, adopted at the party's annual convention earlier this month, urged party members to "keep in mind the pride of a conservative party launched with the platform of changing the Constitution."

The agenda indicated that the LDP would try to write a draft amendment by working with other parties while seeking public support, and called for efforts to expand support for revising the Constitution.

But despite the platform's existence since the party's inception in 1955, the LDP has for decades not taken specific action toward revising the Constitution. The LDP unveiled an updated draft for a revision in 2012 — while the party was out of power. Abe, a longtime champion of amending the Constitution, kept his administration's emphasis on reviving Japan's economy after returning to the helm of government in December 2012 — although his Cabinet last year changed the government's long-standing interpretation of the Constitution to lift the ban on Japan engaging in collective self-defense.

After leading the party to victory in the Lower House election in December, Abe is now almost certain to be re-elected LDP chief this year for another three-year term — meaning he could be in office through 2018 barring severe setbacks. The prime minister and LDP leaders are talking more openly of their intention to change the Constitution. His call to "deepen national discussions toward amending the Constitution" in his policy speech to the Diet in February appears to reflect his confidence in reaching his longtime agenda.

Still, the two-thirds majority hurdle remains a tough one for the LDP alone. While the LDP-Komeito ruling coalition retained its two-thirds control of the Lower House, the alliance needs to go far beyond replicating their 2013 wins to secure two-thirds rule of the Upper House in the 2016 election, when half of the chamber's seats will be up for grabs.

An ally of the LDP for 15 years, Komeito is not necessarily aligned with the LDP on constitutional amendments, especially with regard to the sensitive issue of Article 9. Furthermore, conservative opposition forces who are close to the LDP's goal of revising the Constitution lost substantial seats in the December election.

The LDP's headquarters for promoting constitutional amendments, in a meeting last month, singled out several "important items" in the party's 2012 draft amendment. The list includes amending Article 9 to specify creating a national defense force; easing conditions under Article 96 for the Diet to initiate an amendment; rewriting the preamble in full; drafting new provisions that specify the Emperor as Japan's head of state; respecting family values; ensuring people's right to pursue happiness as long as it does not run counter to public interest and public order; and specifying a nationality requirement on voting rights.

At the same time, Hajime Funada, chief of the LDP headquarters, acknowledged that the party would need to make major compromises in getting opposition parties to agree to initiating an amendment in the Diet. He added that the LDP's draft "will be almost torn to pieces" during talks with the opposition camp to prepare a draft to be initiated by the Diet. Funada also said amendments will not be carried out all at once, but instead will be initiated in multiple rounds, and that issues to be covered in the first round need to be limited.

The LDP reportedly plans to narrow the scope of the first-round amendment process to issues upon which a consensus is more likely to be reached with other parties — such as providing for people's right to a good natural environment; establishing the government's emergency powers in crises involving an enemy attack on the country or major disasters; and setting fiscal discipline. After the Constitution has been amended on these "priority" matters, the party would then begin work on its "important" agenda.

Such an approach might be understandable as a tactic for changing the Constitution anyhow. One wonders, however, whether those "priority" matters are issues that require constitutional amendment. Might they be handled through legislative steps?

This raises the question of whether amending the Constitution is an end in itself or a means toward achieving something else. It is obvious that the "important" items in the LDP's amendment draft are the primary concern of the prime minister and the LDP, while an amendment on the more easily acceptable "priority" issues would be aimed at reducing the public's allergy toward changing the supreme law, which has never been amended since it was adopted nearly 70 years ago.

At the same time, many proponents of constitutional revisions — including the prime minister himself — often say that the Constitution needs to be changed because it was drafted by the U.S.-led occupation authorities right after Japan's defeat in World War II.

"It is an unmistakable fact that the Constitution was drafted by 25 people at the General Headquarters of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers over a short period during the occupation," Abe told a recent Diet session. He also said earlier that the Constitution's basic framework needs to be revised "for Japan to regain a true independence."

According to such viewpoints, it appears that amending the Constitution could be the goal in itself.

Abe has also told the Diet that some provisions of the Constitution need to be changed because they have become incongruous with the times after so many years have passed since its promulgation. He did not go into specifics of the changes sought, adding that the Japanese people should take it in their hands to change the Constitution.

But amending the Constitution should not be an end in itself. If Abe and the LDP want to amend the Constitution, and if other parties are ready to go along, they need to make clear to the public what they intend to achieve by doing that and seek the people's opinions and evaluation, instead of trying to make changes where and when they can.