Japan paying close heed to U.S. nuclear policy
Written by Writer on Friday, November 21st, 2008
OBAMA AND JAPAN / Japan paying close heed to U.S. nuclear policy
The Yomiuri Shimbun
This is the fourth installment of a series examining the prospects for Japan’s relations with the incoming administration of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, with a particular focus on security policies.
In October 2007, in the middle of his campaign to be selected as the U.S. Democratic presidential nominee, then Sen. Barack Obama made a speech in his hometown of Chicago, declaring the “elimination of all the world’s nuclear weapons” as one of his public pledges.
“We need to change our nuclear policy and our posture, which is still focused on deterring the Soviet Union–a country that doesn’t exist,” Obama said. “India and Pakistan and North Korea have joined the club of nuclear-armed nations, and Iran is knocking on the door.”
“More nuclear weapons and more nuclear-armed nations mean more danger to us all,” Obama added. “Here’s what I’ll say as president: America seeks a world in which there are no nuclear weapons.”
Prior to this speech, in January 2007, Henry Kissinger, who served as secretary of state under former Republican President Richard Nixon; former Defense Secretary William Perry, who was one of Obama’s senior foreign policy advisors earlier in his campaign; and two other widely known public figures, jointly contributed a commentary piece to a U.S. newspaper calling for a reduction of nuclear arms.
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Reality vs idealism
Speaking at a lecture in Washington on Oct. 28, incumbent Defense Secretary Robert Gates–who, it is rumored, is likely to retain his post under Obama–said the three presidents he worked for during the Cold War, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, “genuinely wanted to eliminate all nuclear weapons, and said so publicly.”
“But all have come up against the reality that as long as others have nuclear weapons, we must maintain some level of these weapons ourselves,” Gates said.
Obama is no exception to this kind of thinking.
Though Obama is keen to work toward a world free of nuclear weapons, this does not mean the United States will take the initiative in abolishing nuclear arms.
For many years, Tokyo has presented a nuclear disarmament resolution to the U.N. general assembly on an annual basis, and as such, Obama’s views are drawing increasing attention within the corridors of power in Japan– the only country in the world to have suffered a nuclear attack.
The reason Japanese lawmakers’ ears are pricking up is because no U.S. president in history has experience in dealing with the way things are starting to pan out in terms of nuclear weapons.
Ever since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, the implications of the nuclear menace have transformed dramatically: A nuclear deterrent based on the premise of a mutually destructive armed conflict among sovereign states could break down if such groups as Al-Qaida get their hands on nuclear weapons.
As for nuclear development within such countries as North Korea and Iran, the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush has argued in favor of holding a review of so-called “negative security assurances,” in which a guarantee would be given that nuclear countries will not launch a nuclear strike on nonnuclear nations.
The United States, however, has not been able to prevent North Korea from conducting nuclear testing.
There is no denying that the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty framework, under which only the five permanent member countries of the U.N. Security Council can be approved as nuclear powers, has been shaken.
The United States recently inked a nuclear cooperation agreement with India, a non-NPT member. However, this was not done merely to reap potential commercial benefits that could result from possible purchases by India of U.S. civil nuclear technology. Another major reason for the pact is that the United States has placed–somewhat hurriedly–more priority on formulating an arrangement that will enable it to have a say, in some form, in India’s nuclear policy.
There are few signs that Obama will embark on a review of U.S. nuclear policy upon assuming the presidency.
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Japan ‘could go nuclear’
On Nov. 5, Prime Minister Taro Aso reacted tepidly to the nuclear matter, saying: “Is there a chance that global nuclear disarmament will suddenly make great strides following Mr. Obama’s inauguration? The answer is no, simply because the world’s nuclear problems are not a simplistic thing.”
While serving as foreign minister in the administration of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Aso, in response to a question in the Diet in October 2006, made reference to the possibility of Japan going nuclear.
“When a country next to us comes to have [nuclear weapons], we can’t consider, we can’t talk, we can’t do anything and we can’t exchange opinions [about the possibility of this country having nuclear arms]. This is a situation that I can hardly consider right and proper,” he said.
When leading the Liberal Party in 2002, opposition Democratic Party of Japan President Ichiro Ozawa said, “Japan can have nuclear warheads, depending on its resolve to do so.”
In the United States, arguments have been put forward by a number of analysts regarding the possibility of Japan acquiring nuclear weapons.
Given such circumstances, the idea of eliminating nuclear arms is far from a reality in Japan, which has long been protected under the United States’ nuclear umbrella in the face of potential nuclear threats from such neighbors as Russia, China and North Korea.
A general meeting of the United Nations in December last year adopted a Japanese-sponsored resolution calling for nuclear disarmament with an unprecedented majority vote, but three countries, North Korea, India, and the United States, opposed the resolution.
Obama’s “nuclear arms elimination pledge” is surrounded with difficulties.
Expectations, however, have been rising within the Japanese government that the United States under Obama might change its mind regarding the ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which Washington has long postponed, as well as the task of beefing up the nuclear surveillance and verification functions of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
(Nov. 21, 2008)
