Looking back at last year's events, I wondered how the Japan of 2004 will be remembered a decade from now.

One incident stands out above all others: the Oct. 23 Niigata Chuetsu Earthquake. The images that come to mind are the dead, the injured and the displaced. It was an ``act of God,'' to be sure. But such huge sacrifices are not to be ascribed solely to unforeseen natural phenomena. A decade ago, the Great Hanshin Earthquake struck. Most of the 6,400 or so deaths in the 1995 temblor were due to defects in construction or deficiencies in earthquake preparedness and response. One suspects that in setting its own policies, Niigata did not learn sufficiently from the Kobe experience.

As with earthquakes, so with last year's many typhoons: We realize that unsafe dwellings have been built in dangerous places.

Predicting threats

There is a folk saying that lists a traditional hierarchy of fear: ``Earthquake, lightning, fire and father.'' These days, lightning itself does not do much damage; for ``lightning'' let us read, more generally, ``typhoon.'' In households of yore, father was indeed to be feared; nowadays, let us think of ``father'' as the power-holder ``at home'' or abroad.

In any event, among all the natural and man-made calamities that threaten the safety of the Japanese people, earthquakes still rank high. The government's Disaster Prevention Council reportedly envisions, as one worst-case scenario, that an earthquake with its epicenter at the capital could result in 800,000 buildings lost to collapse and fire, and a death toll reaching 13,000.

The plan for revising the Peace Constitution, worked out by the government and a majority of Diet members from both the ruling and opposition parties, is another man-made disaster. From early on, the preparations for this were continually marked by what was in fact unconstitutional conduct. The Koizumi Cabinet has dispatched Self-Defense Forces to a war zone for the first time in the postwar period: an epoch-making step in the direction of constitutional revision.

If the Constitution is indeed revised in the near future, the year 2004 will be remembered as the period of preparation.

From the point of view of national security, it behooves us to compare the threat of earthquakes with the military threat from abroad. I am thinking of the probability that the threat will be actualized, the losses hypothesized, the existence, types and priorities of countermeasures, the budgeting and so on, all evaluated.

However, no cogent discussion of these issues has taken place. We cannot know with accuracy the probability of the occurrence of earthquakes and wars.

But we can compare their relative likelihood. And we can distinguish between instances in which we can, and those in which we cannot, manipulate the probability of such phenomena occurring.

For example, earthquakes cannot be prevented from occurring. But the probability of a military attack by a foreign country can be reduced by adopting the proper foreign policies.

Judging from numerous historical examples, what the authorities will find effective in eliminating military threats is not so much the strengthening of military defenses as engagement in the appropriate diplomacy.

For instance, what caused the ``China threat'' of the 1970s to subside so suddenly was not the sharp increase in the number of fighter jets acquired by the Self-Defense Forces but the signing of the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Japan and China.

It does not appear that earthquake countermeasures and missile defense policies were prioritized with sufficient consideration of this experience.

Of course, the actions in 2004 whose meanings will be conferred by future results are not limited to earthquakes and constitutional revision. For example, there is the prime minister's official visits to Yasukuni Shrine. Since Yasukuni Shrine was a spiritual pillar of the 15 years' war in China and the Pacific (1931-1945), the prime minister's attitude toward Yasukuni will be interpreted as the attitude of the Japanese people toward that conflict.

And since, in wars, one does have enemies, this matter can hardly be disposed of as a domestic issue. Thus, Japan-China relations cannot help being seriously affected. The breadth and depth of the consequences, extending from now into the future, are incalculable.

In the streets of Paris in May 1968, one of the slogans that appeared during demonstrations was Ce n'est qu'un debut (This is only the beginning). In the Japan of 2004, I have sensed a number of such beginnings. Some could lead the nation and our society in the direction of peace and prosperity. Others could take us toward war and ruinous misfortune.

Of course, some beginnings are just that-meaning, in such cases, nothing will change.

But how can we ascertain where these various beginnings will lead? It is not easy to understand what lies ahead.

For example, I did not predict the collapse of the Soviet Union. Nor did I foresee Japan's period of high economic growth in the 1960s.

On the other hand, I did think that Eastern Europe's detachment from the Soviet Union was only a matter of time. And on the day of the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941, I foresaw that Tokyo would lay in ruins. So is it a case of ``right or wrong, fortune-telling is all luck''? Not necessarily.

Judging events

It seems to me now that whenever I have witnessed ``beginnings,'' I have made judgments as to whether the events seemed rational, or ran counter to reason or to human emotion, judgments based ultimately on some ethical standards and which have been at once essentially impossible to make and essential to my existence. So it has been with private matters and with public matters. And the result is that sometimes I have been right, and sometimes I have been wrong.

Such have been my thoughts as I gaze into the skies above Tokyo. No wind. Cloudy. A quiet sky. It occurs to me that this is my own little slice of peace. I call to mind friends who have died; and I eagerly look forward to seeing those who are alive.

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The author, a critic, contributed this article to The Asahi Shimbun.(IHT/Asahi: March 7,2005)