This isn't the Rising Sun of yore:
Defense Agency Director General Yoshinori Ono said Tuesday the government would consider dispatching the Self-Defense Forces to provide emergency aid in areas hit by a large earthquake earlier in the day off Sumatra, Indonesia."If there are requests, we'll examine what we can do immediately and act swiftly. We'll consider the SDF's role in an overall government response and what the SDF can do at the site," Ono said in a morning press conference.
Leadership is the conference of ideal and utility, and, certainly, every democratic nation must choose needs according to means and sovereign interest. But there is something of virtue and reward in freely choosing action that will win nothing material for the state. It's a devotion offset to history; young but burgeoning, and strange and better.