A personal opinion : there is a U.S. military base right in the middle of Tokyo. The location is equivalent to Times Square in New York : http://www.jpri.org/pu

A personal opinion : there is a U.S. military base right in the middle of Tokyo. The location is equivalent to Times Square in New York : http://www.jpri.org/publications/friends/mcneill_JT_05-09-06.html http://www.jpri.org/publications/friends/mcneill_JT_05-09-06... IMHO, just because everyone calls a country with a foreign military base in the heart of it's capital a "democracy" doesn't make it so. I believe this kind of thinking is called normative ethics : "it's OK because it's the norm". I'll call Japan a democracy when there are no foreign military bases on it's soil, at least definitely not in the centre of the capital.