David
how long before japan goes nuke?
why wouldn’t they?
first off, who is to stop them? japan is way more capable militarily than iran, or north korea (nukes not considered). if we can’t make those countries get in line, how on earth could we make an ever more capable state ober the nuclear non-proliferation treaty?
now, why shouldn’t japan go nuke capable? before it has only been the 5 major military powers in the world who were nuke capable. the us, the ussr, china, britain and france.
the times, they are a changin’! france has fallen by the wayside. long ago. arguably they fell by the wayside around 1939. britain has held on.
but now, india and pakistan have both detonated nuclear warheads. india 5 and pakistan 3. now north korea has detonated 2?
it is evident that nothing can be done about a state who decides to snub its nose at the international community, and develop nuclear warheads. north lorea has done so.
soon, japan will have no choice but to develop a nuclear (nucular for you gus) detterent of its own.
but even more important as a detterent will be the nukes soon developed by south korea.
north and south korea are still technically at war. and now the north has not only a bigger better trained military, they have nukes. how long before south korea decides to develop nuckes? you can bet your ass that there are some koreans in seoul talking about how they could possibly defend themselves against a now nuclear capable pyongyang. and they will probably not announce their intent to go nuke. they will just quietly start accumulating the material, and testing the conventional side of the bomb. then they will assemble the bomb. and test it. just to keep pyongyang at bay.
now take a look at east asia. china is nuke capable. north korea is as well. soon japan and north korea will be as well. how long before taiwan decides it can in effect ward off a chinese invasion/annexation by developing the bomb?
taiwan will soon be nuke capable as well.
what portents does this have for the world?
which other states will soon be nuke capable?
turkey will. they have a serious squabble with greece. i think south america will try to stay nuke free. until out buddy hugo decides to get the bomb. then brazil and argentina will both be nuke capable as well.
and the most important result. how long before fissile amterial winds up in the hands of transnational terror groups? not long my friends.
maybe a decade.
Well actually, you forgot South Africa on your list of the younger nuclear powers. Oh yeah, they voluntarilly got rid of theirs, right? Hmmm, and they developed ICBMs in a joint partnership with Israel. Hmmm. So Israel being the land of the Jericho Sanction, don’t you suppose they had their hand in the South African nuclear experiments? Or how about Taiwan? Everyone assumes Israel has The Bomb, why not Taiwan as well? South Africa would have loved the hard currency cash flow during the times it was under international economic sanctions.
Oh, and South Korea already did developmental work on their own Bomb. That piece came out a few months ago, drove the peaceniks mad because that was just so….so….hypocritical, what with the South’s demands that the North remain nuclear free. Given their past scientific groundwork, the South no doubt could be a nuclear power as soon as they obtain the plutonium.
And yes, there is a line of argument that we kept such extensive forces in South Korea and Japan throughout the past decade-and-a-half precisely to keep Japan from feeling the need to develop their own Bomb. I would bet they are even more prepared to assemble the blasted things than the South Koreans.
East Asia politics. Don’t forget that Japan and South Korea have bad blood, which has flared up even in the past decade. Also bad blood between the PRC and Japan. Really bad blood.
Why you not count Iran? Do you really think they would hesitate to turn over nuclear devices to a transnational terror group? And if we nearly had a nuclear Libya, why not Egypt? Saudi Arabia? Syria?
I think the only people not looking to get their hands on The Bomb these days are Vanuatu.
Yeah, all of the above. What do we do? What can we do?