Banzai!
In 1999, aircraft of the German Luftwaffe bombed Serbian targets as part of the so-called Kosovo War (I think "war" is too strong a description of NATO's brief interdiction). During the Cold War, the West German Heer was the largest component of NATO's ground forces arrayed against the Soviets and their Warsaw Pact puppets. (The United States Army was larger, but not all of its forces were in Western Europe.) So, in light of these are other moves towards the normalization of Germany's defense policies, what is the big deal here?

The chief external opponents of the normalization of Japan's defense policies are North Korea, the last Stalinist state in the world, and China, which fought an aggressive war against Vietnam in 1979 and continues to position more and more missiles within firing range of Taiwan. And a reminder, the People's Liberation Army's budget continues to increase by double digit percentages year after year. (Merry Christmas!) Confronted with such inhospitable neighbors, is it any surprise the Japanese Diet voted to make the Japan Defense Agency a cabinet ministry? We're not talking about a massive new program to upgrade Japan's armaments and munitions, or even anything as "radical" as removing the self-defense label from the Ground, Maritime, and Air Self-Defense Forces, just elevated the Japan Defense Agency to a Ministry of Defense.

BTW South Song of the Day
John Linnell, "The Songs of the 50 States" from State Songs (T.L.A.M.)