Japan Will Rebuild From Quake But Faces Other Daunting Tests

For Japan, rebuilding after the earthquake will be the relatively easy part. Surviving in the longer run in the nation's current form?that will be trickier.

There are benefits to being a land of social cohesion with a generally homogenous population trained from birth in the virtues of the common good. We're seeing that now as Japan picks itself up after a serious blow.

And we've seen this resolve before: after the Kobe earthquake in 1995, after Japan's cities were incinerated in World War II, after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, after the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923. The country has chops when it comes to muscling through.