Japan’s nuclear weapons

As the campaign to rewrite Japan’s pacific constitution has ramped up over the past few years, commentators have increasingly thrown around the notion that Japan could “go nuclear” in some short amount of time. Whether it be days, weeks, or months almost everybody seems to agree that a: it would take less than a year and b: it isn’t going to happen unless someone, such as DPRK, strikes first. Still, this column by NYT columnist Nicholis D. Kristof may be the first I have seen to suggest that this has been a deliberate policy decision, and not a side effect of advanced technology and one of the world’s most mature civilian nuclear power programs (driven by the absolute lack of domestic petroleum.)

Few experts expect Iran to give up its nuclear program altogether, but it’s likely that Iran could be persuaded to adopt a Japanese model: develop its capacity to the point that a bomb could be completed in weeks or months, but without testing or stockpiling weapons.

Unfortunately the rest of the column is inaccessible to those without Times Select access (my dad gets a password with his paper subscription), but for those who are curious, the opening line is a rather dramatic “It is quite possible that President Bush will bomb Iran’s nuclear installations over the next couple of years.” Still, Kristof is probably my favorite columnist around, one of the very few who is actually still a real reporter and not just a pundit, and who also lacks a partisan agenda about as much as any columnist possibly can.
It certainly makes sense that, despite massive public opposition should it become know, the government and military would want to have all the pieces ready just in case they ever really needed to make a nuke, but I would like to see some confirmation that this is actually policy as opposed to a “happy” accident of technological prowess and Japan’s unique lack of energy resources among developed nations, leading to a huge surplus of used nuclear fuel.

3 thoughts on “Japan’s nuclear weapons”

  1. This sort of thing has been floating around the foreign policy analysis community for years, in fact since 1964 when China blew its first nuclear load. There was a Professor at Berkeley by the name of Robert Scalapino who ‘predicted’ that Japan would develop a peaceful nuclear program for possible rapid conversion for military use should the need arise. Japan’s reluctance to sign up to the NPT has also often been used to show that it has an active ‘nuclear hedging policy’. An article you might be interested in is Levite, ‘Never Say Never Again’, International Security, 27:3. It is a comparative look at hedging strategies. The revelant quote (apologies to Levite for length, but much of it is Hosokawa anyway) is here:

    “Japan hardly tries to conceal its hedging strategy (though it does seek to keep some of its more specific features out of the public eye). This is evident in repeated statements by senior government officials that, under certain circumstances, Japan could revisit the issue of nuclear weapons acquisition. A statement by former Japanese Prime Minister Hosokawa provides one such example: “It is in the interest of the United States, so long as it does not wish to see Japan withdraw from the NPT and develop its own nuclear deterrent, to maintain its alliance with Japan and continue to provide a nuclear umbrella.””

    Its accompanied by a footnote about Japan’s ‘advanced bomb-making potential’. As others, including yourself, have pointed out though, discussing such issues without taking Japan’s security ‘culture’ into account is somewhat misguided.

    I can send you a pdf of the article if you want it, copyright issues notwithstanding.

  2. I have heard rumors of it myself before, but this is the first time I’ve seen mainstream media source (a VERY mainstream one) making such claims as if it were common knowledge. Kristoff tosses it off as if it were an open secret on the level of the Israeli nuclear program when it is in fact, even if true, not widely known. What I found so interesting is the backhand manner in which Kristoff brought up Japan’s nuclear capability.

  3. It’s hardly a situation comparable to Israel, though. For one, Japan doesn’t actually have any nuclear weapons yet, and it would take them a while to build them. Moreover, the official policy here has long been anti-nuclear. Quoth GlobalSecurity.org:

    The Basic Atomic Energy Law of 1956 limits research, development, and utilization of nuclear power to peaceful uses, and, beginning in 1956, national policy has embodied “three non-nuclear principles”–forbidding the nation to possess or manufacture nuclear weapons or to allow them to be introduced into the nation. Prime Minister Eisaku Sato made this pledge – known as the Three Non-Nuclear Principles – on February 5, 1968. The notion was formalized by the Japanese Diet on November 24, 1971. In 1976 Japan ratified the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (adopted by the United Nations Security Council in 1968) and reiterated its intention never to “develop, use, or allow the transportation of nuclear weapons through its territory.” However, if Japan believed that “extraordinary events” had jeopardised its “supreme interests”, under Article X of the Treaty it could withdraw from the NPT. Such “extraordinary events” could include the acquisition of nuclear weapons by North Korea. Japan could then legally use its plutonium to build nuclear weapons. (emphasis added)

    I’m sure Japanese leaders have this in the back of their minds just in case the shit starts hitting the regional fan, but for now Japan has no more than a capability, and can’t really take further action unless harsher circumstances arise. Not saying that it won’t happen, but it’s so far off that it’s no wonder people don’t know (or care) that much about it.

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