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Following the launch of a new Cabinet under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, certain elements in Japan and overseas are warning of a dangerous swing to the right in Japan politics. I find their concerns hard to understand.

Objectively speaking, the country is still solidly left of center on issues of foreign and security policy. Indeed, by international standards, Japan remains a pacifist nation — here meaning not simply a nation that loves peace but also something less admirable — oddly out of touch with current realities.

This is clear enough if we compare Japanese attitudes with those prevalent in other countries. Back during the Cold War, when the Soviet threat was at its height, an international survey asked people around the world whether they...