Return of the Samurai

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Hajime Kimura for TIME

These days, Japanese pilot Kohta "Vader" Araki, who flies F-15s, is always on alert.

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It's true that Abe's party triumphed in recent polls. But the LDP won the past two ballots with fewer votes than when it was trounced in 2009 by the former ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). The LDP's most recent electoral victories owed more to voters' disgust with the DPJ than an endorsement of Abe's worldview. "The last two elections were about the economy, the economy, the economy," says Taro Kono, an LDP legislator. Still, the Abe administration has articulated a consistent theme: Japan's economic and military futures are inextricably tied. "Abe is very up-front about his personal philosophy, which is that he's interested in a strong state that can defend its people and compete internationally," says Tobias Harris, a Washington-based Japan analyst with Teneo Intelligence. Harris notes the historical precedent of 19th century Japanese modernizers who reformed a once closed nation under the motto "Rich nation, strong military." "[Those reformers] believed that if they didn't modernize, they would be gobbled up by the imperial powers; Abe brings that thinking to the 21st century. That's very dangerous."

Right Is Might
One of the unlikely showcases of Japan's military prowess is a radar facility that looms like a giant golf ball, atop a hill overlooking sugarcane fields and picture-postcard beaches. The SDF base, on Okinawa's Miyako Island, is a frontline one, and its 160 personnel have been particularly busy since the Senkaku-Diaoyu tiff escalated last year. Living full time on the typhoon-battered base isn't easy.

But the soldiers' hardship posting is at least more appreciated now by the Japanese public. Approval for the SDF has skyrocketed in recent years, particularly after soldiers aided the 2011 natural-disaster-relief effort. A popular TV drama this year followed the fictional love lives of a female TV director and an SDF officer. In a nation obsessed with all things cute, the SDF promotes itself through cartoon mascots named Pickles and Parsley. (Pickles and parsley are strong but ultimately pleasing tastes, just like the SDF, apparently.) "People used to call us 'tax robbers' before," says Air Self-Defense Force Major Yasuhisa Furuta. "Now the situation is totally different." SDF enlistment is up, and its veterans even serve in parliament — the likes of Masahisa Sato, a mustachioed retired colonel, who commanded Japanese peacekeepers in Iraq. Unsurprisingly, Sato supports a constitutional revision. "When I entered the SDF 30 years ago, I never imagined that we could be discussing constitutional reform so openly," he says. "Japan is becoming an ordinary country, and the SDF an ordinary military."

That spooks many Okinawans, who inhabit what was once a kingdom called Ryukyu that paid tribute to imperial China. By the late 19th century, though, Okinawa had been absorbed into Japan. (Chinese academics and military officers have postulated that China has territorial rights not just to the Senkaku-Diaoyu Islands but all of Okinawa.) At the end of World War II, in the horrific Battle of Okinawa, the Japanese military forced tens of thousands of Okinawans into combat, with some even compelled to commit suicide in the face of the Allied assault. Local animosity toward Japanese troops, even under the guise of the SDF, lingers — not to mention discomfort with the 25,000 Americans on U.S. military bases on Okinawan soil. "Japan is a very scary country, a warrior culture," says former Okinawa governor Masahide Ota. "The most important lesson from the Battle of Okinawa is that the Japanese military will never protect the local people."

On the island of Ishigaki, which has administrative jurisdiction over what Japan calls the Senkaku, Mayor Yoshitaka Nakayama appears open to building an SDF base to better protect the disputed islets. "I am concerned that China is trying to expand its territorial interests," he says. "Since such a country exists in our neighborhood, we have to enhance our defense." Kameichi Uehara, head of the local fishermen's union, doesn't see the threat. "I've never heard of any Chinese boats giving any trouble to us." Local historian Shizuo Ota concurs. "I don't think China has provoked the Senkaku issue," he says. "It's rightist groups from Japan that are causing most of the problems."

Japan's vocal rightists, who like to tool around Tokyo in vans that broadcast historical whitewashing, don't help with Japan's international image. "Ask anyone," says Nariaki Nakayama, a conservative lawmaker, "and they will say that the Japanese are a peace-loving people who want to avoid war." But Nakayama also denies that the Rape of Nanjing happened and believes that "comfort women" are a myth. One controversial Abe supporter is Toshio Tamogami, a retired SDF general who had to resign as head of the Air Self-Defense Force in 2008 after denying that Japan was an aggressor in World War II. He now helps lead an ultra-right-wing group called Ganbare Nippon, or "Go for It, Japan," which has staged illegal landings on the Senkaku-Diaoyu Islands. "Abe is completely different from his predecessors," says Ganbare Nippon president Satoru Mizushima, who swam from a boat to the disputed islets last year. "He may be thinking, 'Please, put your hands on the Senkaku. It will open the door to protecting our country by ourselves.'"

In July, Abe visited Miyako while on the campaign trail for the upper-house election. Base commander Lieut. Colonel Yasumasa Hayashi can't remember too much of what the Prime Minister said when he praised the troops for being a "cornerstone of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance" for the region. "I was too nervous to be meeting my commander in chief," Hayashi admits. "But I feel great pride to be serving on the front lines of Japan." Standing on a helicopter-landing pad at his tiny military outpost, Hayashi gazes out at the East China Sea. Just 200 km away are the disputed islands that have caused such friction between Japan and China. The seas are calm — for now.

with reporting by Chie Kobayashi / Naha Air Base

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