Remilitarization in Japan ? The only thing Japan needs right now is the right (and the means) to project it's armed forces outside the archipelago. Somebody correct me but I think the budget of the armed forces in Japan is the second in the world (???) The budget project for next fiscal year is 4cho9547oku en, if you put the zeros at the right place it makes :4,954,700,000,000, with a $ at 100 (?) en it makes $49,547,000,000. And this is only for the self defense department budget (i suppose it does not include r&d in public labs, this should belong to the ministry of education budget : 6cho5534oku en.) data from 12/25 edition of asahi. The japanese army is a (~) 250,000 men strong force with technology eq to the us armed forces. only the cost of production differs (a factor 1.5 to 4 compared to the international market), difference due to the interdiction to export products/technologies related to the military industry (only the us are exempt from this, since a 83 revision of the security treaty) thus creating a much smaller market with artificially high prices (that would be much more funny to discuss this in the wto than the banana/cheese thing between the us and europe...)
plus, my memory may fail me but the obuchi cabinet (the previous one) already passed a 'new guideline' bill that is supposed to support actively projects related to the security treaty between the us and japan. the contents of the guidelines are unknown to me but i remember a special issue of a 'left' monthly in november 1999 focusing on the policies of the obuchi cabinet that included a harsh criticism of them (the guidelines). so i guess a research in the international pages of related magazines from 1999/4 to 11 should bring fruits.
back to the main issue. the right to project means a change in the constitution (the japanese people renounce the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes. chap2 art9) although japan's self defense forces -as they are locally called- have been allowed to operate abroad as part of peace keaping operations thanks to a law passed in 92. the means to project well means that they don't have any (?) carriers and related, that also is from memory and i have nothing at hand to check it. In 1994 a comitee handed a report that suggested the acquisition of long distance support material to take part more efficiently to pko. i have no idea what the results were. any specialist of defense matters ?
this change in policy comes from the harsh criticism against japan during the gulf war and from a sudden awareness that participating to pko looks better when you want to have a permanent seat.
ps: japan spent about $4 billion on the american bases in 95, i suppose it was from 10 to 13% of the defense forces budget of this time, maybe taken from a different place ? And it is like this every year...
all this to say that remilitarization is probably not an issue anymore in japan (all this started at the beginning of the cold war). but forcing sales of awacs/etc without technology transfers/production licences or playing with the wto thing might be something bush&co might want to try (with the excuse that buying abroad would _not_ create much unemployment in related industries in japan since the market is so small.)
jc helary