The ink was barely dry on the new Guidelines for Japan-U.S. Defense Cooperation, which were unveiled during Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to Washington last month, when Sen. John McCain, chairman of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, issued a wake-up call to the Japanese people. He said he expects Japan's Self-Defense Forces to put boots on the ground in the event of a conflict on the Korean Peninsula and hopes they will scale up operations in the Middle East and South China Sea in support of U.S. military forces.