Japan should allow nuclear arms on its soil for effective deterrence: Retired military officers

Straits Times

a day ago

As the world's only country to have suffered atomic bombings, Japan vowed to never possess, produce and permit the introduction of nuclear weapons onto its territory. PHOTO: AFP
Japan should allow nuclear arms on its soil for effective deterrence: Retired military officers
– The volatile security environment facing Japan today has led its military experts to moot an idea that has long been taboo: that its Three Non-Nuclear Principles dating to 1967 should be reviewed.
As the world's only country to have suffered atomic bombings, Japan vowed to never possess, produce and permit the introduction of nuclear weapons onto its territory.
But retired Self-Defence Forces (SDF) officers have lamented an unofficial fourth principle – never discuss – as they fret over Japan's military preparedness with the country being surrounded by the nuclear-armed states of China, Russia and North Korea, and with the region becoming more turbulent.
Japan enjoys the protection of the nuclear umbrella of its security ally the United States. Yet in what has been described as 'perverse logic', the third principle of never permitting nuclear arms on Japanese territory bars the US from bringing such weapons onto Japanese soil and its nuclear-equipped vessels and bombers from travelling through its waters and airspace.
These retired officers said that Japan risks hamstringing itself with its antiquated policies. South Korea, another regional US ally, in 2023 resumed allowing American nuclear submarines to make port calls, having previously halted permission in 1981. The most recent call was in February, when the USS Alexandria docked in Busan.
'Both the Japanese government and its people have stopped thinking about the operational aspects of how Japan itself can make the US nuclear umbrella effective,' said a June 2 report released by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation think-tank. Its contributors included retired general Koji Yamazaki, a former Chief of Staff of the Joint Staff of the Japanese military.
'In case of a Taiwan contingency, nuclear-equipped US land, sea, and air forces capable of striking China cannot be deployed or ported in Japan, which undermines our national security interests and reduces the effectiveness of the US extended nuclear deterrence,' the report said. It was referring to the possibility of China attacking the self-ruled island that Beijing claims as its own.
'The principle should be revised to say, 'Do not let (the enemy) strike Japan with nuclear weapons'. The original wording, 'Do not allow nuclear weapons into Japan' is perverse as a security logic,' the report added.
Another report in March by eight retired SDF officers, including retired general Ryoichi Oriki, also a former Chief of Staff of the Joint Staff, called for the creation of strategic guidelines on nuclear issues, and the clarification of how Japan can simultaneously pursue the contradictory goals of nuclear deterrence and nuclear disarmament.
'The time has come to fundamentally and comprehensively review our country's nuclear weapon policy,' the report said.
These retired officers are planting the seeds for policy change as Tokyo is spooked by developments in its neighbourhood. China, which may possess 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030, and has in recent years increased its military drills near Taiwan and its grey zone activity against it, could well wage a nuclear war in its bid to reunify the island.
North Korea's ballistic missile development continues apace, while Russia has threatened to use its strategic nuclear forces on Ukraine.
Events in Asia and beyond have led the US-based Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to set its Doomsday Clock, which symbolises how close humanity is to its own destruction, at 89 seconds to midnight in January 2025 during its annual review, from the previous 90 seconds. This is the shortest it has ever been.
Yet any broaching of the subject of nuclear weapons is taboo to the Japanese public – and would likely amount to political suicide for any politician who does. Security hawks such as the late former prime minister Shinzo Abe had considered revising the Three Non-Nuclear Principles, but eventually backed down.
But Japan has refused to sign the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons that bans nuclear arms totally and goes further than two older treaties to which it is a signatory.
It is undeniable that Japan is at a crossroads of its nuclear policy, 80 years after the US dropped Little Boy and Fat Man on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively.
And this is worrisome for the region.
On June 6, Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan raised the spectre of North-east Asia being home to five nuclear powers – Russia, China, North Korea, South Korea and Japan – during a discussion at the Hudson Institute think-tank during his working visit to Washington.
'A North-east Asia with five nuclear powers – which in fact has become more, not less likely – is actually a very dangerous circumstance,' he said during a fireside chat with Hudson's Asia-Pacific security chair Patrick Cronin, noting that the weight of Japan's wartime history could be inflammatory.
However, he noted that the discussions have been triggered by the turbulence wrought by US President Donald Trump, which has caused allies to reassess the robustness of their security relationships.
'For 80 years, the American security umbrella in North-east Asia in fact has been a key stabiliser for the relationships in a complicated part of the world,' he said. 'One adverse effect of the turbulence, uncertainty in rules, security arrangements, and trust, is that, I fear, other leaders will be having unthinkable thoughts.'
Such 'unthinkable thoughts' might include a push towards manufacturing nuclear weapons. Japan is said to own enough stockpiles of plutonium, generated from spent nuclear plant fuel, to quickly produce 7,000 atomic bombs by some estimates.
Cabinet Office statistics show that Japan held 44.5 tonnes of plutonium as at December 2023, with 8.6 tonnes stored within the country and 35.8 tonnes kept overseas.
Experts, however, see this step as unlikely given that Japan does not have the delivery platforms, which would take decades to either acquire or build.
'Japan needs deterrence to be credible, all of which needs to be developed beyond simply building a warhead,' Professor Heng Yee Kuang of The University of Tokyo's Graduate School of Public Policy told The Straits Times.
'Doctrine would also require attention. This will open an additional can of worms. Will the US help? How might regional partners react, beyond domestic opinion?' he said, noting the worst-case scenario of a destabilising nuclear arms race.
The introduction of nuclear weapons, however, is necessary for effective extended deterrence by the US-Japan alliance, the retired SDF officers argue.
'A Taiwan contingency has also been called a Japan contingency or a Japan-US contingency, and this possibility has been increasing,' Gen (Ret) Yamazaki told a Sasakawa Peace Foundation webinar on June 2.
'If China attempts to unify Taiwan by force, it could easily alienate Japan and the US by using tactical nuclear weapons,' he said, adding that the US would clearly be hampered in its deterrence if it did not have nuclear weapons in the neighbourhood.
Furthermore, SDF personnel must be trained to deepen their understanding and operational capabilities of nuclear weapons, said retired Lieutenant-General Sadamasa Oue, who was formerly commander of the Air Materiel Command of the Japan Air Self-Defence Force.
'The SDF should be proactive in supporting the US military in their use of nuclear weapons,' he said. 'This will strengthen trust between the two allies.'
Walter Sim is Japan correspondent at The Straits Times. Based in Tokyo, he writes about political, economic and socio-cultural issues.
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