The Japan Defense Agency last week confirmed media reports that the nation studied the feasibility of pre-emptive strikes against threatening enemy states in 1994. Though they confirmed the report, they declined to reveal the details of the study.

Defense Agency Director-General Yoshinori Ono stressed that Japan does not have the capability to launch such a strike, and Japan takes the position that offensive attacks would be conducted by U.S. forces under the bilateral security treaty that exists between the two nations (which would be followed, no doubt, by more criticism of the was the U.S. military carries out the task).

A recent poll by the Yomiuri Shimbun revealed that 61 percent of Japanese voters favored revising the nation’s war-renouncing constitution.