Foreign Affairs Washington May Need to Deal With a Nuclear Japan Nonproliferation is becoming a less stable policy with every year. Governments throughout East Asia and the rest of the international system are increasingly agitated about media reports alleging that an anonymous source in the office of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi stated that the country needs nuclear weapons, a position that deviates sharply from the country’s long-standing non-nuclear principles. Other Japanese government sources earlier stated that Takaichi also is considering reviewing Japan’s “Three Non-Nuclear Principles,” which prohibit the country possessing, producing, or permitting the introduction of nuclear arms. Those principles were first declared in the Diet by then–Prime Minister Eisaku Sato in 1967 and seemed to reflect a national consensus at that time But the domestic consensus against Japan having a nuclear deterrent has been fading for years. Several former high-level officials, (including prime ministers and defense ministers once they were out of office), have openly suggested that Japan embrace such weapons. A once nearly forbidden topic is now generating vigorous debate among both the political elite and the general public. Takaichi herself has quickly acquired a reputation for adopting hawkish positions, expressing complaints about the external behavior of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and indicating strong support for Taiwan’s security. During one parliamentary debate, she even crossed a longstanding policy line that Beijing had drawn. Asked repeatedly about a hypothetical Taiwan security contingency, Takaichi abandoned Tokyo’s usual diplomatic evasions and declared that a military crisis over the island would constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, thereby potentially triggering collective self-defense and direct Japanese military involvement.  Since the end of the Second World War, Japan has relied on the United States for nuclear deterrence. Yet Washington issued its guarantee at a time when there was only one hostile nuclear power in Japan’s neighborhood: the Soviet Union. That situation has changed dramatically over the decades. Russia, as the Soviet Union’s principal successor, is still an important factor in Tokyo’s security equation, but there are other crucial players. The PRC began to build an arsenal in the mid-1960s and is now one of the world’s leading nuclear powers. Indeed, the gap between the overall military capabilities of the United States and the PRC has narrowed significantly over the past two decades. Tokyo became even more uneasy when volatile and unpredictable North Korea began to pursue a nuclear weapons program in the 1990s. Pyongyang has ignored Washington’s repeated demands to abandon that program. Concerns about the reliability of the U.S. deterrence commitment have been mounting in Japan as the overall regional and global security environments have changed. The anonymous source in Takaichi’s office expressed the growing domestic worries about continuing the current policy of total reliance on the United States for nuclear deterrence: “In the end, we can only rely on ourselves.” North Korea’s emerging capabilities are especially worrisome to Japanese leaders and the general public. Experts at the U.S. Arms Control Association estimate that Kim Jong-Un’s regime has now assembled approximately 50 nuclear weapons. Most possible Japanese targets, both military and civilian, are well within the range of Pyongyang’s missiles. But equally troubling is the potential impact of North Korea’s expanding capabilities in long-range ballistic missiles. The ability of a malignantly hostile power like North Korea to strike the American homeland changes the entire risk-benefit calculus regarding Washington’s extended deterrence commitment to Japan—or any other U.S. allies and security dependents in East Asia. Over the past several years, there is growing evidence that Pyongyang already has tested missiles that have sufficient range to reach the continental United States. How long will it be before North Korea has an entire operational fleet of such missiles? The Trump administration may have to decide in the relatively near future what policy to adopt if Japan opts to build and deploy an independent nuclear deterrent. U.S. leaders typically have displayed an allergic reaction to most manifestations of nuclear proliferation, although they were perfectly content when Great Britain quickly developed its own arsenal shortly after the Second World War. A succession of U.S. administrations also have remained tolerant of Israel’s undeclared and unacknowledged stock of atomic weapons. But Washington has been far less accommodating toward other uninvited nuclear powers. Even France under President Charles De Gaulle found Washington’s reception to its new status in the 1960s downright chilly. When India and Pakistan joined the ranks of nuclear powers in the late 1990s, the U.S. reaction was even less accommodating. U.S. leaders have even persisted in their absurd demand that North Korea return to nuclear virginity, even as Pyongyang has built an arsenal roughly the size of Pakistan’s.  U.S. administrations even have a long history of discouraging America’s technologically capable, firmly democratic allies from crossing the nuclear weapons threshold. Washington has not been shy about pressuring (if not outright bullying) Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan to foreswear building independent nuclear weapons capabilities instead relying totally on the United States for deterrence. A similar hostility has been directed toward any manifestations of interest in a nuclear deterrent by Germany and Washington’s other European allies. At the very least, it is time for U.S. leaders to review that rigid policy and carefully reconsider its various implications. Japanese who want their country to reduce or eliminate its total dependence on the United States for nuclear deterrence are not being reckless or unreasonable, given the realities of today’s regional and global security environments. Worrying about a stable, democratic country such as Japan having nuclear weapons echoes the misplaced logic of gun-ban zealots in the United States. Their policies disarm peaceful citizens while producing guaranteed unarmed victim zones for violent predators. Focusing on preventing Japan and similar countries from possessing nuclear weapons creates a similar dynamic—leaving peaceful status-quo powers vulnerable to the threats of ruthless rogue states (like North Korea) or unstable semi-autocratic powers (like Pakistan). To the extent that nonproliferation is still a realistic objective at all, Washington needs to focus its concerns on trying to impede more states in those two categories from becoming members of the global nuclear weapons club. The Trump administration’s attitude toward the possible emergence of a nuclear Japan should at least be one of indulgent receptivity. The post Washington May Need to Deal With a Nuclear Japan appeared first on The American Conservative.