Pacifism has never been so silly. In an East Asia that features both one of the world’s most irrational states and a rising dictatorial power bent on changing the region’s strategic balance, it is a crucial ally of the United States that labors under a constitution that could have been written by Quakers.

Of course, it was an American team put together by Douglas MacArthur after World War II that wrote the Japanese Constitution, imposing pacifism as state policy. That was understandable 50 years ago. Now the constraints of the Japanese Constitution – and the Japanese attitudes that have preserved them – are senseless anachronisms.

As part of her tour of Asia, Secretary of State Condi Rice visited a Japan that is slowly emerging from its shell. It is one of the diplomatic triumphs of the Bush administration that it has helped accelerate this process. The ideal should be to make Japan as reliable a partner of the U.S. in Asia as Britain is in Europe.

The alliance is a natural. Japan broadly shares our values. The U.S. is the world’s No. 1 economy, and Japan is No. 2, a powerful combination. We want to check China, and Japan feels threatened by China. Japan provides the basing the U.S. needs at a time when we have lost our bases in the Philippines and our relationship with South Korea looks shaky.

It is the rough neighborhood that has helped turn Japan away from its old pieties. North Korea is enough to shake anyone’s pacifism, and the Chinese have stupidly provoked Japan at every turn. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi took office in April 2001 determined to strengthen the U.S. alliance and loosen the more restrictive postwar constraints.

Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution is the main obstacle. The constitution – and the interpretations and policies arising from it – bans a standing army, collective self-defense and arms exports. Japan has a military, but it’s called a Self-Defense Force, and it’s supposed to be limited to territorial defense.

Japan constantly has Talmudic debates about what defense capabilities are permitted. For a long time, it denied itself refueling capacity for its F-4 fighters, since that was considered too “offensive” in nature. The prohibition on collective self-defense means that Japan cannot come to the aid of an ally – i.e., the United States – when attacked. The interpretation of this prohibition has prevented even routine U.S.-Japanese cooperation.

But the restrictions have been loosening. After Sept. 11, legislation was passed authorizing the Self-Defense Force to stray beyond East Asia. Koizumi sent ships to the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea, where the Japanese supported the coalition efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. And he deployed 600 ground troops to relatively peaceful southern Iraq.

Notably, Chinese intermediate-range missiles have a range that means they would overshoot Taiwan. Whom could they be intended for? So, Japan is a convert on missile defense. The Japanese are pouring $1 billion a year into it in a cooperative effort with the U.S.

Japan enraged the Chinese earlier this year when it joined the U.S. in issuing a statement that included in a list of “common strategic objectives” the goal of a “peaceful resolution of issues concerning the Taiwan Strait.” To the extent that China has to worry about not just a U.S. defense, but a Japanese defense of Taiwan, it complicates China’s planning and makes a military move marginally less likely. In general, a strong Japan creates a balance of power in East Asia – of the sort that once existed in Europe – that makes any Chinese hegemonic ambitions more difficult to achieve.

Of course, any more assertive Japanese moves will revive the boogeyman of Japanese militarism. Other Asian countries have nightmarish memories of the Japanese military.

But it is a new Japanese government, with new norms, in a new time. The traditional restraints on it only serve to hobble what should be one of the world’s significant players on the side of decency and civilization. Unleash Japan.

Rich Lowry is a syndicated columnist. He can be reached via e-mail at: [email protected].