KEY POINTS:
It is 62 years since Japan surrendered to the United States at the end of the World War II, and many things have changed, but not Japan's subordination to the United States.
Despite having the world's second-biggest economy, Japan is still a pygmy on the international stage, and its foreign policy is still unswerving devotion to an alliance that was imposed on the country half a century ago by the American occupation forces.
It is the deeply conflicted views of the Japanese about this foreign policy that have brought down Prime Minister Shinzo Abe after less than a year in office. His Liberal Democratic Party still has a majority in the lower house of parliament and will choose a successor from its own ranks on September 22, but this may mark the end of the LDP's half-century monopoly on power.
In his resignation speech, Abe explained that he was quitting "to pave the way for ruling and opposition parties to work together to approve Tokyo's naval mission in support of the US-led operation in Afghanistan". The mission, which ends on November 1 unless the parliament renews it, is one of the ways that the party slides past the prohibitions of the "peace" constitution and deploys Japan's armed forces abroad.
It's a pretty modest deployment, as it only involves Japanese destroyers and tankers refuelling US warships in the Indian Ocean that are supporting the US-led war in Afghanistan. But even with Abe gone, parliament will not renew the mission. Six weeks ago the Liberal Democrats lost control of the upper house, and all the opposition parties oppose an extension.
The Liberal-controlled lower house can override the upper, but that could trigger an early election to the lower house. The party could easily lose that election, given the Japanese public's present mood, and then it would lose control of the government.
So the Liberal Democrats will probably let the "anti-terrorist" mission in the Indian Ocean end after next month. It has bigger problems to contend with, starting with the paucity of credible candidates to replace Abe as prime minister. Taro Aso, the front-runner, is scarcely house-broken. As foreign minister, he observed that American diplomats would never solve the problems of the Middle East because they had blue eyes and blond hair. As economics minister, he said that he wanted to make Japan a country where rich Jews would want to live.
The main claim to fame of Aso's principal rival, Yasuo Fukuda, 71, is that his father, Takeo Fukuda, was prime minister. That is an example of the Liberal Democratic's greatest problem - political inbreeding at the top, and the consequent shallowness of its pool of talent.
The outgoing prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is the grand-son of a former prime minister; Junichiro Koizumi, the man whom Abe replaced only 10 months ago, began his political career as Takeo Fukuda's secretary.
Since the beginning of this decade, moreover, the Liberal Democratic Party has fallen into the hands of a narrow group of politicians whose goal is to roll back the changes introduced in Japan during the American occupation. They want to promote nationalism in the schools - to "rescue young people who have no dreams", as Abe put it - and to change the pacifist constitution that forbids Japan to send troops abroad.
This hard-right faction within the party routinely denies the worst aspects of Japan's behaviour overseas during World War II and its members exaggerate the threats that Japan faces from North Korea and China. Above all, they seek to build up the armed forces and thus turn Japan into a "normal" country.
Some of this plays well with the Japanese public, but the slavish loyalty that the Liberal Democrat's hawks display towards the American alliance does not. It is strangely at odds with the nationalist tone of their rhetoric, and it leads them into actions that alienate the public. One recent example was Abe's attempt to force Okinawa to accept the construction of a new military complex for US forces. As a result, the LDP was heavily defeated in Okinawa in the July elections for the upper house.
The blatant corruption and incompetence of some of Abe's cabinet ministers played a big role in his downfall. Within the space of 10 months, four ministers were forced to resign by scandals and a fifth committed suicide. But the coup de grace was Abe's inability to get the upper house to approve continued naval co-operation with US forces in the Indian Ocean. If the LDP does not choose a more dovish prime minister next time, it may go into electoral free fall.
In the past, the party has always managed to bounce back after political setbacks, but the rise of the right-wing hawks in the party may change that pattern. Moreover, the perennially unsuccessful left-wing parties are no longer the only alternative.
The Democratic Party, a centrist grouping created 10 years ago by dissident Liberal Democratics members and various independents, has become the second-largest party and a plausible alternative government.
The drift towards a rearmed Japan with a more assertive foreign policy has seemed unstoppable in recent years, but the Liberal Democratic Party hawks may have over-reached themselves. The LDP may even end up spending time in opposition, which would do it a world of good.* Gwynne Dyer is a freelance journalist based in London.
