“You can’t really take the US presence for granted”

It was at an 18th century Georgian manor house outside London that Japanese lawmaker Rui Matsukawa began to have serious doubts about America's commitment to defending her country.

Matsukawa, a former deputy defense minister, traveled in March to historic Fordham Abbey for a top-level bilateral conference. She said she learned from British lawmakers, diplomats and business leaders that a tectonic shift in their thinking was underway.

Now a contingent of senior Japanese lawmakers is beginning to think the unthinkable in the only nation to have suffered an atomic bomb attack: Surrounded by nuclear-armed neighbors, Japan too might have to deploy those weapons of mass destruction.

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