In mid-October Japan was named to the United Nations Security Council for the usual temporary two-year term -- the country's 11th since it was admitted to the U.N. in 1956.
But Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and others are arguing it is time for Japan to get a permanent seat on the U.N.'s most august and influential body. That would make it the first new permanent member in 70 years.
It's hard to find much wrong in their argument -- or the argument that India and Germany also belong in that international power club.
A seat on the Security Council would recognize economic and political realities. Besides being the world's third-largest economy, Japan is the second-biggest contributor to the U.N. budget after the U.S. Adding Japan would also raise the status of the council as an institution genuinely devoted to keeping peace and upholding freedom, rather than for conflict and deadlock.
The current five permanent members -- the U.S., the U.K., France, China and Russia -- were the principal victors in World War II. In 1945, they were the most powerful nations on earth. But the world has changed a great deal since then, as everyone except the U.N. has come to accept.
Some permanent members, notably France and Britain, have seen their fortunes fade. Others, including the two principal losers in WW II, Germany and Japan, have become major players in world affairs and the global economy, as has India -- which was not even an independent country in 1945.
The so-called Group of Four -- Germany, Japan, India and Brazil -- have for years jointly lobbied the Security Council to grant them permanent places, in recognition of their growing wealth and influence.
THE CASE FOR JAPAN Unlike the General Assembly, the Security Council is not a democracy. It was set up to give certain nations influence over the international body, proportionate to their clout in global affairs, including military affairs. The permanent members were to encapsulate the U.N. charter's most precious principles. As a last resort, the council was to be the U.N.'s instrument for defending world peace.
This is what makes the exclusion of Japan so puzzling.
Japan has the world's fourth-largest navy and seventh-largest defense budget -- a budget, according to the International Institute for Security Studies' Military Balance 2015, larger than any of its G-4 partners. It is also on record for having poured billions into state-building, humanitarian and other international assistance programs for decades, and doing it very well. "Now more than ever, Japan wishes to offer that wealth of experience, unstintingly," Abe said in his speech to the General Assembly on Sept. 29, pushing for permanent inclusion on the Security Council.
In addition, and perhaps more importantly, Japan has an unblemished postwar record of cultivating peaceful relations with its neighbors and maintaining its own democratic traditions -- as well as being one of the key drivers of world economic growth. None of that can be said of permanent member China, nor Russia, for that matter.
Indeed, if there is any permanent Security Council member whose conduct most contradicts what the U.N. stands for, it is undoubtedly Vladimir Putin's Russia. If expanding the number of seats on the council is politically unfeasible, the U.S. could sponsor a General Assembly resolution to give Russia's seat to a country that contributes far more to "the maintenance of international peace and security," as the U.N.'s own mandate for the Security Council reads.
AMERICAN BACKING The bottom line is, the influence of the U.S. will be crucial for getting Japan, as well as Germany and India, on the Security Council. It should use it even in the face of inevitable Chinese opposition. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush both supported Japan's membership, along with Germany's. President Barack Obama has been content to sit on his hands when it comes to Security Council reform.
India certainly deserves a permanent seat. Yet Japan's gross domestic product is more than twice India's, with Germany's not far behind. Obama's successor needs to embrace their cause -- both for the sake of modernizing the U.N.'s most prestigious institution, and to signal that the world defined by the conflicts of WW II, of which the current Security Council is a faded snapshot, is truly behind us.