Daniel Bob on 38 North rebuts a Charles Krauthammer suggestion that Japan and South Korea be permitted to develop nuclear arms as a way to pressure North Korea to terminate its nuclear arms program:
Japan’s public and its leaders understand that choosing to go nuclear would actually reduce the country’s security. It would undermine the country’s vital alliance with the United States and likely provoke South Korea, America’s other key alliance partner in East Asia (which has also rejected nuclear weapons despite having the technical capability), to follow suit. However, 59 percent of Koreans gave a positive answer when asked, “Should South Korea possess nuclear weapons?” according to the same Genron NPO survey cited above. Given their ongoing distrust of Japan, Koreans would almost certainly view their neighbor—if armed with nuclear weapons and unmoored from its alliance with Washington—as a threat, generating even more support for developing a nuclear arsenal. If Japan and South Korea joined the nuclear club, China could be expected to respond by increasing its own store of nuclear bombs, while other states in the region would feel less constrained by their NPT obligations.
The likely result would be the end of both the US-led alliance system in Asia, which has been so successful in advancing US and regional interests, and the NPT, which stands as the world’s most important and successful arms limitation treaty. Within East Asia, historical animosities still afflict Japan’s interactions with South Korea and China; territorial disputes undermine Japan’s relations with China, Korea and Russia as well as China’s relations with Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam; internal conflicts linger in Thailand, Myanmar, the Philippines and Indonesia; and a number of autocratic regimes and democracies alike face instability. The proliferation of nuclear weapons would not only increase the chance of catastrophic war in the context of regional tensions, but also of loose nukes falling into the wrong hands. …
I ask you to stop and think for a moment what it would mean to have nuclear weapons in so many hands, in the hands of countries large and small, stable and unstable, responsible and irresponsible, scattered throughout the world. There would be no rest for anyone then, no stability, no real security, and no chance of effective disarmament. There would only be the increased chance of accidental war, and an increased necessity for the great powers to involve themselves in what otherwise would be local conflicts.
Yeah, the idea seems nutty; in fact, it sounds like capitulation. We can’t solve the problem, let’s let their close neighbors solve it, instead. Daniel’s case seems sound.
