In recent years foreign observers have reported increasing nationalistic pride in Japan. Such growing sentiment is rooted in frustration over gaps between Japan's security policy and the reality of today's world, and between contemporary Japan and its wartime past.

Japan's humiliation during the 1991 Gulf war first revealed the gap between the constraints of its pacifist constitution and the demands of the post-cold-war world. Despite its $13bn (€9.9bn) contribution, Japan was criticised for its inability to participate in the operations of the coalition forces. Meanwhile, controversy over Japan's wartime past - exemplified by the Yasukuni shrine, which honours 2.5m war dead, including 14 Class A war criminals - has loomed over its relations with neighbours, creating an opening for a harmful strain of nationalism.