Need to discourage Abe's military move

EAST Asia marches on towards potential confrontation while the rest of the world looks on with apparent insousiance. The latest step along this road is Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's move to revise the official "interpretation" of the postwar Japanese constitution.

Mr Abe presents this as a move designed to enable Japan to fulfil its global responsibilities by allowing it to come to the aid of allies in the event that they are attacked, and to engage in "collective self-defence" - thus making Japan a more "normal" country in this regard. But it is not so much the content of what he is propos…