Article

2009-04-22 China-Japan-Koreas

Japanese lawmaker floats sobering option: going nuclear

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Steve White 2009-04-22 00:00|| || Front Page|| [1 views ] Top

#1 Japan seems to be getting the hint that they can't rely on the 'nuclear umbrella' of the United States anymore. Particlary with Bambi at the helm. He wouldn't even monitor the North Korea missile launch.

I can well imagine Obambi begging North Korea to pretty-please talk and sing campfire songs while Japan burns.

Posted by CrazyFool 2009-04-22 00:28|| 2009-04-22 00:28|| Front Page Top

#2 Correct, CrazyFool. Nork bellicosity and recklessness, along with Chinese muscle-flexing, have hitherto been the chief external factors accelerating Japan back towards a posture logical and appropriate for its circumstances (i.e., armed and non-submissive).

The new external factor is US irresolution/weakness/cluelessness.

Internally, generational change has been key.

Sadly, it is too much to hope that more than a few other US allies or partners might react to the collapse of US leadership in a similar fashion - by rediscovering their sense and pride and national gonads and DOING something.

Israel may be likely to move faster/sooner/harder WRT Iran, Vietnam is very nervous, as are Ukraine, Poland, and the Czechs.

Re the Hiroshima "peace" museum (a true anecdote I might have shared before, can't recall): a friend, in Japan speaking to various trade groups on a trip sponsored by the GOJ, was taken through the museum by a foreign ministry guide. Outside in the park, the guide asked him what he thought of the museum. He said "I guess Japan will never attack the US again".

One of those Churchill-Like Responses I Wish'd I'd Said In Real Life.

While touring the museum myself a few years back, I judged it "not as bad as I expected". Actually it was interesting how detailed and dry some of the exhibits on fission and bomb design were. I noted with great amusement - silently - that in the very first gallery, one reads a solemn and apocalyptic bit of prose on the wall, then can turn around and look out the huge glass wall at the lush park and bustling beautiful city beyond. Uh - apocalypse, sorry, not so much - testament to human and Japanese resilience and creativity and vitality - uh huh.

In fact, the old city exhibition hall - the domed building famously left standing (concrete) - serves more to reinforce the prosperity and vitality of the city around it than to evoke awe and dread of nukyuler weaponry. The skeletal building, to me, is a lonely and forsaken relic - just as the always-silly and indulgent and illogical nuke-paranoia and blind pacifism that clings to its supposed symbolism SHOULD be.

Posted by Verlaine 2009-04-22 01:52|| 2009-04-22 01:52|| Front Page Top

#3 I'd bet dollars to donuts that Japan is already nuke armed, and this is just a trial balloon for coming out in the open.

Posted by mojo">mojo 2009-04-22 02:47|| 2009-04-22 02:47|| Front Page Top

#4 Mojo, I have heard from several people that, IMHO, I consider to be in the know.

They have the parts, they just aren't assembled. Japan could be nuclear in a week with several warheads and missiles if it wanted to. Pretty shrewd Sun Tzu type thinking if you ask me.

Posted by DarthVader 2009-04-22 10:22|| 2009-04-22 10:22|| Front Page Top

#5 Looks to me like Nakagawa got passed the Bush Cowboy Ball. He's safely out of the government & has a reputation for instability, so the Japanese establishment can make a threat obliquely, by having a loose cannon do the posturing, without actually committing anything officially, or even unofficially.

Posted by Mitch H.">Mitch H. 2009-04-22 13:26|| http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/]">[http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/] 2009-04-22 13:26|| Front Page Top

#6 The only one with the power to defuse North Korea is China. The way things stand now, China benefits from North Kores's saber-rattling. If it really looked like Japan was going to get serious about protecting themselves from their neighbors, that would spook China. It might be enough to get them to do the fnal solution on North Korea. Then South Korea could relax. No more threat to their economy from the Nork's sucking it dry by merging with them, like East Germany did to West Germany. I hope Japan makes her play. Good things could happen.

Posted by Richard of Oregon 2009-04-22 18:34|| 2009-04-22 18:34|| Front Page Top

#7 ION JAPAN, seems a lawmaker is proposing that Japan GIVE NON-JAPANESE FOREIGN CITIZENS + PERM RESIDENTS FORMAL VOTING RIGHTS.

FYI, WAFF > DITTO FOR GREECE = GREEK LAW ENFORCEMENT as per allowing more non-Greek immigrants to hold police + security jobs.

That sound you hear in the background is GODZILLA, MOTHRA, etc. = MANY NIPPONESE belching in righteous??? ANTI-FOREIGN VOTING RIGHTS -ZILLA INDIGNATION.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2009-04-22 21:17|| 2009-04-22 21:17|| Front Page Top

23:26 remoteman
23:19 Zhang Fei
23:13 Halliburton - Mysterious Conspiracy Division
23:00 Richard of Oregon
22:46 Thing From Snowy Mountain
22:44 Zhang Fei
22:41 Silentbrick
22:34 abu do you love
22:28 no mo uro
22:17 Frank G
21:56 Thing From Snowy Mountain
21:52 ed
21:50 Hyper
21:29 JosephMendiola
21:24 JosephMendiola
21:22 JosephMendiola
21:17 JosephMendiola
21:09 JosephMendiola
21:08 Barbara Skolaut
21:01 Frank G
21:00 Pappy
21:00 Frank G
20:53 Pappy
20:42 Pappy