Let Japan Go Nuclear

Reality has always been that disarmament is fine as long as it's the other guy who does it. Confirming this, Brazil's vice president recently advocated his country's development of nuclear weapons to "deter aggression" and gain "greater respectability" - while India announced that it has built high-yield nuclear weapons. But these developments are not nearly as disturbing as what's going on in despotic North Korea - now a nuclear-weapons power that loves to threaten war. From Japan is a pronounced turn to the right in national politics and a near-term promise of a more robust Japanese foreign and national security policy. In this context - and a few weeks before the last Japanese national election - the top U.S. general in Japan told the Tokyo Press Club that Japan didn't need its own deterrent to address the growing nuclear threat from North Korea. Since then, of course, North Korea has admitted that it was in the "completion stage" of enriching uranium - the process needed for larger-scale nuclear weapons production. Did the U.S. general's comment and the continuation of threats from North Korea - all widely reported - influence the elections in Japan? Probably. The top U.S. general's naive statement certainly would have helped persuade the Chinese and the Russians that there was no need to take more aggressive positions against the North Korean nuclear-weapon and missile-development programs. Not only that, Bill Clinton's recent, extorted visit to North Korea (like Jimmy Carter's in 1994) is but the latest in a long line of failed U.S. approaches toward North Korea that have only encouraged its increasingly dangerous and belligerent behavior. Here is a review of the current policy dynamics that play into getting North Korea under some form of rational international control:R