“Japan could have nuclear weapons in the time it takes to assemble nuclear weapons!”
I have no doubt you are correct. However, if Japan assembles nuclear weapons because they need nuclear weapons they will likely have already suffered a first strike that has killed much of their population.
The greatest use of nuclear weapons has been as a deterrent against attack. If you actually build them because you need them, you have already suffered tremendous damage. For the weapons to work as a deterrent they need to be widely advertised and demonstrated. This is one reason I don’t support the testing freeze. Those tests were of old weapons about to be decommissioned. (They go bad over time because the electronics is vulnerable to radiation damage.)
Because of the data the US got from its nuclear testing it is unlikely that our weapons will fail, providing they have been maintained and regularly rebuilt. Did that happen under Obama? I’d guess no. We need to completely revamp our arsenal after each Democrat leaves office.
I suspect, because of Obama, Japan will join a new defense group to protect itself from China whether the US has a Democratic president or no. The new group would likely contain India, Israel, Taiwan and South Korea. (Yes, I am aware the politics of this is daunting. But, necessity and invention...etc.)
Agreed!
But I bet the Japanese already have nukes. However they have constructed them in a clever way so they can nuance their existence in a way that only the subtleties of the Japanese language can convey.
That “alliance” would never, ever happen.
As to the article itself, I find this very interesting. The bigger the first strike is, the more effective it will be. But the timelines on all of these things are what gets me. Is Trump seriously considering striking soon or not? How many years is he planning to wait in order to maximize local forces? How long is he going to give the DPRK to up its air defenses and improve its missiles and nuclear weapons, and increase their numbers?