Posted on 07/24/2022 4:40:04 AM PDT by FarCenter
The war in Ukraine called into question many of the fundamental pillars of the international order. The European security system that has developed since the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact has received a shattering blow. A war of aggression by a major power intent to destroy a neighboring state and annex significant territories has broken with major taboos, not to mention international law.
Apart from the obvious tragedy for the people of Ukraine, another potential casualty is the nuclear nonproliferation system which has existed since 1970. Putin’s blatant breach of the Budapest Memorandum, signed in 1994 by Russia, the UK and US relating to the accession of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), has upended security guarantees in Europe.
The memorandum was an assurance of territorial integrity for Ukraine after it agreed to dismantle the large nuclear arsenal that remained on its territory after the break up of the Soviet Union. By signing the memorandum, Russia – along with the US and the UK – agreed not to threaten Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan with military force or economic coercion. This has proved to be worthless.
And there’s the danger. If we now live in a world where major powers are fully prepared to embark on a full-scale war to achieve their territorial ambitions, then the assumptions of the NPT, according to which non-nuclear states can rely on the security assurances from the major powers, may no longer be valid. Many countries may think it prudent to go nuclear to avoid Ukraine’s fate.
(Excerpt) Read more at asiatimes.com ...
A nuclear Japan would send chills throughout China.
Relations between Japan and China are a problem for them to work out.
With more nationalist government it is going to send chills through the US as well.
LOL, if anyone thinks Japan has not gone nuclear, they don’t understand the Japanese mindest very well. Oh, I am sure that Japan doesn’t have any actual nuclear weapons on hand... but I am sure they have stockpiled all the components, carefully kept separate, and have run all the supercomputer simulations they need to make sure that, if they ever needed to be snapped together, they would definitely work.
Delivery systems? Japan’s Epsilon rocket is ICBM in everything but name — logically so because it is basically a demilitarized version of the MX Peacekeeper missile — built in the same tech, anyhow.
The author here cites Ukraine, but I think Afghanistan is more unpleasant from the Japanese standpoint. The way Biden unassed the country, leaving billions in hardware and thousands of US citizens in the lurch must have been a total leemer to Tokyo defense planners.
Ever since Obama, the Japanese have been wrapping their minds around the idea that the US is not a credible defense partner anymore and have been quietly preparing for the time when they would have to go it alone. All Afghanistan and Ukraine are doing is making it clear that they will need to be ready sooner rather than later.
Very well said. Thank you.
The last several decades of loss of life and treasure in the neocon-neolib pursuit of leading and enforcing a world order is coming undone, as those commenting here sometimes thrown Putin-ist and Biden-ist pejoratives as if grenades. What may be known is that the EU has played the US as a patsy for decades, and NATO and the EU have both pursued expansionist goals as if immune from market forces. Withdraw a secured energy supply and we see the quick result. Ditto for the last year and a half which took a newly energy-independent US and made it a net importer of energy again.
Seems to me that the poles are not between nations as power blocs these days, but between governments and their hoped-for generations of serfs in the Hayekian sense, working to pay "perpetual debt." Certainly this is the message from the UN as from the WEF.
As individuals, we live in cooperative communities, it is true, but we also are each our own separate "pole" such that a multi-polar world should not hold the catastrophic vision some hold for it. A uni-polar world, on the other hand, can only be ruled, as in the dream of aristocratic and Marxist dictatorships.
That a Japan might plan for its own survival is what Japan should do. And every nation of the world as well. Is the US a "credible" defense partner? Certainly given the invasions and bombings and color revolutions in which the US has participated in the last several decades suggests we are a credible OFFENCE partner.
Given the likes of the J6 committee's offense of late, as one example among many, other nations would do well to consider such.
Very good point!
Your #7 is outstanding, and this comment in particular drives to why Trump was hamstrung with Russia-gate and the Ukraine impeachment. It's now apparent he stumbled into this global political slush fund and with that he endangered the principals involved. I've very interested in knowing if they offered to 'cut him in' on the deal, or did they just hope to take him out politically. But like Frankenstein, he's lives and he's headed back to their village. They'll be ready and so will we.
The one leader with the brains to do this was Shinzo Abe, whose tatemae was to be every nation's friend, and whose honne was to put Japan first in everything.
He was also be smart enough to know that Trump was the one American leader he could work with, and that this made Trump an enemy of the global state.
If I had any inkling that Japan wanted to return to its colonialist/imperialist past, all this would scare me, but I am convinced that is not in their future: for them it's Japan first, but not Japan uber alles.
I guess, but also, Biden’s blatant breach of the Nuremburg Agreement, signed in 1944 by the United States and others.
Ever since Obama, the Japanese have been wrapping their minds around the idea that the US is not a credible defense partner anymore and have been quietly preparing for the time when they would have to go it alone.
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I worked on a naval facility in Japan for 2 years every day full time and was all over Japan during that timeframe. I traveled to Yokosuka, Itazuke, Sasebo, Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Osaka, and many other places. I worked with the Japanese all day every day. They entertained me and my wife in their homes. I daily observed the billions of dollars in facilities, equipment, ships and personnel that the US has committed to Japan for 77 years.
So, respectfully, I disagree with your statement highlighted above. The Japanese know the U.S. produces an idiot for President occasionally (Carter, Clinton, Obama and now Biden) and they just shift gears and ride it out. They do not and will not discontinue their militarily based dependency on the U.S. As my friend Yugi Kugita used tell me, almost daily, “Japanese love America”!!
I’d be willing to bet dollars to donuts that Japan either already has nukes or has everything needed to assemble nukes at the ready. And I don’t think it would take S.K. very long to put together a nuke either. Both are first world nations with highly competent scientists.
Aboslutely. I can think of one other Asian state that should get(buy) its own nukes.
Ukraine is only the impetus - The REAL reason that they may have to go nuclear is that the empty promises of the United States cannot be relied upon! We were among those that guaranteed Ukraine's security when they gave up their nukes after the dissolution of the USSR.
—”but I am sure they have stockpiled all the components, carefully kept separate, and have run all the supercomputer simulations they need to make sure that, if they ever needed to be snapped together, they would definitely work.”
Far more technology is required to produce a Toyota than a basic nuclear bomb.
Has Japan started its new nuclear fuel reprocessing plant last promised for this year? Plutonium by the ton.
Japan already has more than enough nuke-quality plutonium on hand to build over 300 nuclear bombs, far more than China has. Japan had so much plutonium they sent the excess to the USA when the USA requested it. They don't need to create more plutonium, unless they want to give it to Taiwan or South Korea.
According to some articles, Japan has enough plutonium to make 6,000 nuclear bombs. But that plutonium requires some finessing to do so. On hand, they can rapidly assemble 300 nukes, within a few days.
Do you think Abe's fate may have been a warning to other Western nationalist leaders?
His death is troubling on many levels.
That’s a good idea. :)
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