I agree with skeeter that there is nothing inherently wrong with nationalism. Japan's nationalism has a unique character we do not begin to get. I have read a lot of books on Japan, but David Bergamini in "Japan's Imperial Conspiracy" seems to come closest. Also, it helps to try to figure out Kokutai, which is a spiritual combination of Emperor, citizen, land, ancestral spirits, government, and Shinto religion woven together into a several thousand-year heritage. Western societies are driven by election cycles, but Japan is not. In Bergamini's book you get the best sense I have seen of a force driving this society through the millennia that is never revealed to the West, but is understood by Korea and China. At the present moment Japan may quietly pave the way to move publicly away from our military protection. I think a lot of Japanese are asking why the U.S. would risk a nuclear strike on their country, just because a Japanese city was incinerated.