In a first for Japan's Self-Defense Force, Tokyo is dispatching three CH-47 helicopters and 600 personnel to Indonesia to fight wildfires that have been spreading across the archipelago nation. The deployment, announced by Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi following a formal request from Jakarta, reflects both the severity of Indonesia's crisis and a quiet but consequential expansion of what Japan's military considers its proper role in the world. For a nation whose armed forces have long been shaped by pacifist constraints, sending soldiers abroad not to keep peace but to fight fire marks a s