Posted on 10/31/2011 2:50:12 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Japan's leaders must face country's 'latent' possession of nuclear weapons
In the 27 years since the application for the construction of a reprocessing plant was lodged with Rokkasho, the village has undergone tremendous change. Massive cranes have been brought in, and hefty structures have gone up one after another. Nuclear money has brought wealth to the village, making its per capita income the highest of any municipality in Aomori Prefecture. Despite some twists and turns, the national project was getting closer to becoming a reality.
There's a little "secret" to the reprocessing plant, however.
On July 17, 1988, Japan implemented revisions to the Japan-U.S. Nuclear Agreement that would allow Japan to construct nuclear fuel reprocessing plants, despite strong opposition from the U.S. Congress. Using its own enrichment technology, it was now possible for Japan, in theory, to produce the raw materials necessary to build nuclear bombs.
By 2005, the year I last visited Rokkasho, the facility had been subject to 11 routine inspections and 14 unannounced inspections from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), whose aim was to ensure that the plant was not producing any such materials. Despite being a nonnuclear weapons state, Japan was now a "latent" nuclear weapons state. Japan claims it is protected against threats from other countries by the U.S. nuclear umbrella, but the rest of the world sees Japan as a state that would not hesitate to possess nuclear arms, if the circumstances called for it.
(Excerpt) Read more at mdn.mainichi.jp ...
P!
Pardon the pun.
i WOULD HAVE BEEN SHOCKED IF THEY DIDN' HAVE NUKES.
They are not the Japan of the 1930’s or 1940’s. They joined civilization. If only Islam would convert.... I could feel comfortable with any CIVILIZED country or ideology owning nukes because when a CIVILIZED one does, they tend not to detonate them on foreign soil because they fear retribution.
Good.
I feel pretty stupid right now, but I had always assumed that the Japanese DID have nukes. It doesn’t make me nervous.
Good point Laz. “An armed society is a polite society”.
If I had their neighbors (China, N. Korea, Russia), I’d darn sure want some nukes.
It is worth noting that N. Korea launched a ballistic missile test out OVER Japan just two years ago.
North Korea missile launch condemned
Published: April 5 2009 03:50 | Last updated: April 6 2009 00:21
Global leaders condemned North Korea on Sunday for firing a long-range missile over Japan just hours before Barack Obama, US president, gave a major address in Europe calling for a “world free of nuclear weapons”.
Full story:
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/68a5baae-218c-11de-8c4b-00144feabdc0.html
We have badly mismanaged the issue of a nuclear Japan.
We could have used the threat of a nuclear Japan as a club on the Chinese to get North Korea under control.
The Japanese don’t really want nuclear weapons, but I think that we and the Japanese could have made the Chinese think that it was going to happen.
Nuclear arms control bureaucracy does not want their fiefdom to be challenged.
You hit on the essential distinction. A country whose leadership is answerable to its people is much less likely to want to trade a good percentage of its population for victory than a dictatorship.
The point of instability with our relations with the USSR during the cold war was that they had a high probability of initiating an exchange if they thought their ruling class would survive and remain in control.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.