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Should Japan Replace ‘Secret Weapon’ with Nukes?
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by BMCWrites | May 28, 2009 at 11:37 am
644 views | 14 Recommendations | 3 comments
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Should Japan replace the “secret weapon” that has protected the East Asian nation for more than 60 years with nuclear weapons? That’s the question many people are asking in the wake of North Korea detonating a nuclear weapon and firing missiles earlier this week.
In this video, Charles Krauthammer tells a Fox News Channel audience, “We need a nuclear Japan.” Like many in Japan, it appears as if the syndicated columnist has lost confidence in the “secret weapon” that is said to have protected “The Land of the Rising Sun” since the bombing of Nagasaki almost 64 years ago. That secret weapon became the subject of a 2007 movie, “Big Man Japan,” a clip of which appears here.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (3)
at 12:32 on May 28th, 2009
No, if Japan has inquired an antimatter weapon of some kind. Call it a "doomsday weapon" if you will. Then why downgrade to a lousy worthless radiation spreading nuke?
at 18:36 on May 28th, 2009
Japan's Article 9 of its own constitution would have to be changed to allow this and that is rather unlikely since the Japanese are proud of this part of their constitution and not ready to give it up.
It was tried under US pressure before and failed.
at 19:30 on May 29th, 2009
I have no proof for the following but the gossip I got from an insider in Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (Japan's largest defense contractor) when they were my client was that Japan has a number of nuclear devices in a pre-assembled state at some facility requiring only a few hours to be made complete. Thus they can plausibly deny they have nuclear weapons. The rationale is that should North Korea or China ever attack, the length of time taken to approve changes and ratify the constitution and then build a nuke from scratch would make the whole "weaponisation for defense" exercise meaningless. I would suppose such a situation as deterrent would only be effective if the Japanese have let slip this information on the back channel to China itself. They probably never informed Korea since it's a mortal enemy, preferring to rely on China to reign in N. Korea.
If it strikes you that this is a violation of the Japanese constitution then I would say; obviously! Just as the hidden budget of the US Military is a "technical" violation of the US Constitution. These people see themselves as patriots acting in the best interests of their country - constitutions be damned.
Even Japan's constitutional limitation of 1% GDP expenditure on military is a fraud. A senior officer in the Japanese army told me the calculation was more like 4%. How can that be? OK - e.g. The government builds the roads, power, structure foundations and a few other amenities under the public works budget and then only the last 10-30% of expenditure to finish the site as a military base is then listed as military spending. See? There's a million ways like that to fudge the numbers. And no-one's complaining....
See more here: Japan Lifts Ban on Military in Outer Space