I had to come back to this comment: "The Pacific vets are understandibly angry at the Japanese, but I think that anger is matched by ETO veterans once you bring the death camps issue up."
I don't think the ETO soldiers love the Nazis, but they don't viscerally hate Germans the way many Pacific vets and many Americans of that era hate the Japanese. The Germans weren't suicidal. They didn't sneak attack us. They didn't uniformly mistreat their prisoners. They didn't demand an apology for us bombing their country.
I agree that right now Japan is not a threat. But that is not to say that the same industrialists that were so gung-ho behind the war ever left power--we never cleaned that gang out. Should have been a lot of swinging going on, just like the Krupps should have danced on a rope, but we decided otherwise, foolishly, I think.
After viewing the Yasukuni shrine 'explanations' of the Rape of Nanking and Pearl Harbor, I wouldn't give Japan any more than they need to defend themselves, and nukes are way down on the list of things they NEED. They have a very high-tech defense force already. Let's help them defend themselves, but we must make sure the cultural superiority that remains ingrained doesn't sprout wings again militarily. And if you doubt that it is a culturally ingrained superiority, look how the country's people still treat Ainu, Koreans, and any non-pure-blood Japanese. It may be better than it was, but most of the country would still freak about a "Look Who's Coming To Dinner" situation.
I just doubt that any Japanese PM or Diet leader would cripple his own political career in calling for rearmament.
To MacArthur's great credit, he did fundamentally reshape Japanese society and economy for the better, by getting rid of most(not all) of the industralist/militarists types after WWII.
Japan may be more of a problem in 2030, but I see China as more of a 2010 threat.
"It may be better than it was, but most of the country would still freak about a "Look Who's Coming To Dinner" situation."
Unfortunately, I think you could still see that in this country as well.