WILL JAPAN GO NUCLEAR?
by Marshall Auerback
December 21, 2004
The author is a London-based financial advisor at
David W. Tice & Associates, an investment advisory firm, and is
a frequent contributor to the company newsletter, The Prudent
Bear.
"In order to prepare for
the defense of Japan, the SDF [Self Defense Forces] has to
be not only involved in its own efforts, but also in
international efforts." - Akihiko Tanaka, defense expert at
Tokyo University
"There has been a
remarkable growth of pro-Taiwan sentiment in Japan. There is
not one pro-China figure in the Koizumi Cabinet." - Phil
Deans, director of the Contemporary China Institute at the
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
In his now infamous "Axis of Evil" speech,
President Bush explicitly warned that North Korea and Iran, not
just Iraq, threatened the world because of the nuclear weapons
they were developing. With the United States increasingly
preoccupied by the war in Iraq, these other two "members" of
this so-called Axis surged ahead with plans to advance their
respective nuclear weapons programs. Both reasonably concluded
that what distinguished their situations from Iraq was that Iraq
proved not to have nuclear weapons. North Korea and Iran
may indeed have already obtained the technology required to
manufacture nukes, thereby creating a far more powerful
deterrent against a pre-emptive strike by the U.S. military.
Over the past couple of years both Iran and
North Korea have been playing a game of chess with America—and
if they have not exactly won, they have advanced by several
moves. In the case of Iran, Tehran's strategy of playing off
Europe against the U.S. appears to have been largely successful,
with even Britain having publicly gone out of its way to
disparage the notion of a pre-emptive military strike. There is
mounting evidence that Iran's nuclear program has been well
hidden and broadly dispersed across the country, including in
crowded cities. Confronted with intelligence evidence, Iran
admitted to inspectors last year that it had hidden critical
aspects of its civilian program for 18 years, and even today
Pentagon analysts raise questions as to whether all of its
nuclear-related sites are known. Iran has also sought to exploit
the growing chill in Russo-American diplomatic relations. In
mid-December of 2004, it said Moscow would have to show
"readiness" to expand nuclear ties with Tehran if it wanted to
secure a solid share of Iran's atomic market in face of growing
competition from Europe.
Because it lost time and squandered
resources, the United States now has no good options for dealing
Iran. What about North Korea?
Here too, the U.S. likely has no good
options in a military sense, but there are growing indications
that Washington will exploit its longstanding ties with Tokyo as
a means of containing Kim Jong Il's regime. While the rest of
the Asia/Pacific region is increasingly turning to Beijing as
its new economic and political locus, Japan appears to have made
the decision to throw in its lot completely with Washington.
Economically, the Bank of Japan has systematically destroyed its
balance sheet through its longstanding (and ultimately futile)
dollar support operations to accommodate the most egregious
excesses in U.S. economic policy-making. But as Japan's Iraq
deployment indicates, this cooperation is now manifesting itself
to a greater degree in the military sphere.
Although not yet explicitly stated, the
logical culmination of these ties would be to encourage Japan to
go nuclear at some stage in the future. From Washington's
perspective, this would also have the added advantage of curbing
China's growing influence in the Asia/Pacific region.
In regard to North Korea, Tokyo has for many
decades implicitly encouraged the perpetuation of a divided
Korean peninsula. Pyongyang has returned the favor, first
through repeated abductions of Japanese citizens during the
1970s (an issue brought to the fore again last year when some
were finally reconciled with their respective families) and more
recently after North Korea tried to pass off a box of mixed
human bones as the remains of a woman who was kidnapped from
Japan years ago as a teenager. DNA tests showed that the bones
belonged to a variety of people, the announcement of which
created shock waves in Japan.
Of more immediate military consequence is a
report published by the National Bureau of Asian Research some
two years ago. Little noted at the time, the report made
comprehensive—and alarming—assessments
of the ballistic-missile capabilities of various Asian countries
(including China, India, Japan, Pakistan, Taiwan, and the two
Koreas). In the section on North Korea, the Nodong-1, a
Scud-derived missile the country is known to possess, was said
to be capable of delivering a nuclear weapon to U.S. military
bases in Japan. The Taepodong-1 missile allegedly has an even
greater range, and a few years ago the North Koreans test-fired
one that landed off the Alaskan coast. The Taepodong-2, which
some observers believe the North Koreans may try to develop into
a three-stage version, could go farther still. According to the
NBAR: "Such a missile could reach most of the continental United
States from North Korea."
Although the non-discovery of Iraq's alleged
weapons of mass destruction, (and the current politicization of
the CIA), creates justifiable scepticism of current American
intelligence claims, it is noteworthy that North Korea's growing
nuclear capabilities are also confirmed by International Atomic
Energy Agency head Mohamed El Baradei. Mr. El Baradei has said
he is sure that in the two years since his inspectors were
ejected from North Korea the nuclear material his agency
monitored has been converted into fuel for four to six nuclear
bombs. His assessment aligns with private assessments of many
American intelligence officials, although it goes well beyond
anything the Central Intelligence Agency or President Bush and
his aides have said in public.
It has been said that the retention of U.S.
military bases in Japan no longer serves any significant
strategic rationale for current American defense needs. But if
the objective is to conduct the next major conflict with
Pyongyang from the shores of Okinawa as opposed to Los Angeles,
then these bases certainly have considerable attractions, not
the least because over 60 per cent of the operating costs are
underwritten by the Japanese government. The initial Japanese
contribution, dubbed the "sympathy budget" in Tokyo (originally
on the grounds that the American government told its Japanese
counterpart it was experiencing budgetary difficulties following
the Vietnam war and could no longer cover the cost of its bases
in Japan), was introduced by the LDP in 1978 initially to cover
the medical insurance of Japanese civilians working on the
bases. But the size and scope of the Japanese government
contribution has risen almost every year since 1978 even as the
U.S. was ostensibly scaling down its post Vietnam overseas
commitments. Additionally, as Japan scholar Chalmers Johnson
notes, most of the land that the Americans occupy in Okinawa is
still legally owned by 31,521 individuals or families who are
forced by various laws to lease it to the Japanese government,
which in turn sub-leases it to the Americans free of charge.
Moreover, under Prime Minister Junichiro
Koizumi, Japan has become one of the most outspoken supporters
of the Bush administration's global agenda, even to the point of
enthusiastically committing troops to Iraq in spite of
significant domestic political opposition. In early December of
2004, Mr Koizumi extended by a year the deployment of 550 ground
troops in Iraq, the biggest and most controversial dispatch
since the Second World War. His government has also continued to
push for a revision to the 57-year-old pacifist constitution
that would enable more effective participation in such missions
as a way of strengthening the U.S.-Japan alliance.
No post-war Japanese leader, not even the
noted nationalist, Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, has gone as
far as Koizumi. His government's stance is in marked contrast to
Tokyo's reticence to commit anything beyond substantial sums of
cash during Gulf War I, payments which were made under duress
following some very open arm-twisting by then Secretary of
State, James Baker.
Given the extent of Japan's financial and
(growing) military contribution to this effort, playing the
nuclear card would seem a logical culmination of this
cooperation, especially in light of Washington's current
military limitations, now vividly on display in Iraq. Japan's
potential arrival as a nuclear power, however, has implications
well beyond North Korea.
Although the Bush administration may no
longer refer to China as a "strategic competitor" as it did
before the September 11, 2001 attacks, there is little evidence
to suggest that it has undergone a Damascene conversion in
respect of its relations with the PRC. Beijing has replaced
Tokyo as Washington's leading "unfair trade" bogeyman,
presumably because although Japan's bilateral surpluses with the
U.S. remain significant, Tokyo can offer something in the way of
a strategic quid pro quo —
clearly not the case with China.
Both the U.S. and Japan retain strong
economic links with Taiwan and both regard Beijing's increasing
emergence as the new economic and political regional power of
Asia with less than wholehearted enthusiasm. Even during the
Clinton administration, the U.S. signed agreements with Japan
undercutting the latter's so-called "Pacifist constitution," and
securing Tokyo's cooperation to help "protect" the Taiwan
Straits.
China has vigorously protested any intrusion
by the U.S. and its Japanese client into Taiwanese affairs, but
to little avail. And Tokyo itself is beginning to shed its
customary reticence in this area. It has risked provoking a
downward spiral in its relations with Beijing with the
announcement that it planned to grant a visa to Lee Teng-hui,
Taiwan's former President, to visit the country during December,
2004. In addition, Prime Minister Koizumi has also made clear
his intention to continue visiting the Yasukuni shrine, which
China regards as a monument to Japanese militarism.
Interestingly enough, public opinion polls in Japan show many
more citizens supporting Mr Koizumi's visits, as well supporting
further cuts in development aid to China. This creates a
political context that may render it easier for the government
to embrace the nuclear option.
Equally significant, Japan's most recent
Strategic Defense Review named both North Korea and China as
causes for security concern as it instigated an overhaul of
defense priorities. The plan, to be executed with a budget of
Y24,240bn ($230bn, €174bn, £120bn) over the next five years, cut
from Y25,160bn for the current period, also aims to promote
greater participation by Japanese forces in international
peacekeeping operations.
The inclusion of China as a country that
needs "carefully watching" follows a gradual build-up in tension
between the two countries, particularly after the November 2004
incident in which a Chinese submarine was discovered in Japanese
waters.
A private-sector committee that provided the
basic recommendations for the five-year plan refrained from
referring explicitly to China in its report. But recent spats
appear to have stiffened Tokyo's resolve and induced a more
explicitly hostile policy stance. A senior defense policy
official told Britain's Financial Times: "There's a
growing mood in Japan that we ought to confront China. They keep
coming into our zones and their activities are annoying us." He
added: "We are keenly aware of the growth of China's military
capabilities." Beijing's defense spending was much higher than
it admitted, he said.
Part of Japan's response to China and North
Korea is to develop a joint missile defense system with the U.S.
The new defense review outlines further funding for that
program, as well as a partial lifting of a self-imposed
arms-export ban in order to allow Tokyo to ship parts related to
missile defense. It is easy to envisage how other self-imposed
bans (such as the current one on nuclear weapons production)
could be lifted in the future.
Before America went to war in Iraq, its
military power seemed limitless. There was less need to actually
apply it when all adversaries feared that any time Washington
unsheathed the sword it would win. Now the limits on the
country's military manpower and its sustainability are all too
obvious. For example, the Administration announced this summer
that in order to maintain troop levels in Iraq, it would
withdraw 12,500 soldiers from South Korea. It was also recently
reported that recruitment to the National Guard reserve had
fallen 30% below the Pentagon's target. Some volunteer units are
so short of men that female troops are being used for the first
time in new mixed-sex support units that may be deployed with
all-male combat troops. The North Koreans, the Chinese, the
Iranians, and other unnamed members of the "Axis of Evil" who
have always needed to weigh the prospect of potential U.S.
military intervention now realize that America has neither the
stomach for additional wars, nor the ability to conduct them
successfully.
Today's situation is somewhat comparable to
the period that existed during the Cold War, when the threat of
nuclear annihilation clearly limited the prospect of direct
military conflict with the former Soviet Union. The U.S.
response to this strategic limitation was to conduct war by
proxy in the developing world. Although the threat of "mutually
assured destruction" has dissipated, the ongoing risks of
"imperial overstretch" (given the scale of Washington's current
global strategic aspirations), make nuclear containment via
client states a less economically taxing option for the U.S.
While the 'realists' of previous
administrations tried to figure out how to follow the British
strategy of surviving the downward glide-path of American power
and protecting their class interests in the process, the
neocons—and this is why they are ascendant—have made up
their minds that they will keep that geo-political power at all
costs. While the perceived immediate threat is North Korea, the
ultimate threat in the eyes of the neocons is China. They
continue to see China as a major strategic competitor,
particularly as Beijing embarks on diplomatic efforts to win the
hearts and minds of other Asian governments. With the exception
of Japan, it is succeeding. Since Taiwan's recent legislative
election implicitly rejected President Chen Shui- bian's call
for moving toward independence, the prospects of a peaceful
reunification with Taiwan have increased at some distant date in
the future. Left to its own devices, China will become the
diplomatic king of Asia cutting the U.S. out of the most dynamic
region of the world (and the world's largest repository of
savings). In the eyes of Washington's neocons, it is better to
try and curb that growth sooner rather than later.
How to do it? Not by direct attack, but
indirectly. Encouraging Japan to become an explicit nuclear
power would be one means doing this in a relatively
cost-effective manner. It would enhance Washington's currently
limited options in dealing with North Korea, while having the
additional (and more important, long-term) benefit of curbing
China's strategic aspirations in the Asia/Pacific. We may still
be a few years away from that prospect. But just as September
11, 2001, and Pearl Harbor have so often been described as
"hinge events" that changed Americans' previous assumptions, so
too a decision by Japan to embrace the nuclear option would send
comparable shockwaves around the Asia Pacific and beyond.