International Law

Japan With Nukes? I Beg to Differ

By Stan

Funny who can be considered an expert on a subject these days. A newspaper in Japan interviewed one of the two surviving crewmembers of the Enola Gay (plane that dropped the first nuke on Japan in 1945).

So of course they asked him about Asian foreign relations, military strategy, Japan’s interaction with China and North Korea — you know, ’cause the guy’s an expert on all that stuff.

Note that he seems to be one of those folks that believe in the inevitable conflict between China and (Japan, U.S.?) other nations. He’s an old white guy who doesn’t like Obama, so maybe he’s one of those old Republican types that just can’t handle the thought of “Red” China hanging around after all these years.

Interesting how he lumps China in with North Korea and Iran. Lots of similarities there???

Anyway, the excerpt is at least interesting:

So I’ve always endorsed Japan’s position of let’s not go for nuclear weapons. But I don’t believe that anymore. [...]

The only thing that worked before now is deterrent. So if Obama gets us out of nuclear weapons, and Japan is sitting there with no nuclear weapons, Japan is at the mercy of North Korea and China, we are defenseless against North Korea and China and Iran. We already have a weapon and I trust they’ll keep them under control. But Japan is heavily into the nuclear power industry, more than the biggest nuclear power in the whole world. When you generate nuclear power, I’m kind of on the fringe of that. You manufacture plutonium — that’s the Nagasaki-type bomb. So that’s why North Korea wants it, Iran wants it, China has it, Pakistan has it. I think Japan with super technology could very, very quickly produce nuclear weapons and be prepared to use them if they had to.

Now that’s what I am going to ask you — that’s my point of view for where Japan should go. Now I need to ask you — how do you think Japan would be over the long range, of being a protectorate of nuclear weaponry? Would it not use it unless there is a good reason to use it? For me, I’d like to be reassured that Japan is a democracy and a world power and will protect what it has — nuclear power and nuclear weapons if it can get nuclear weapons. Getting nuclear weapons would hold off North Korea for sure — that would stop North Korea from ever using them — that would involve Japan. I think it might be a deterrent to hold back China. (FP Passport)

© Stan for China Hearsay, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags:

Full post as published by China Hearsay on August 12, 2009 (boomark / email).