“It’s to stop the Americans from intervening in armed skirmishes or full-scale war on the Korean Peninsula.” “The reason North Korea is developing a hydrogen bomb and intercontinental ballistic missiles is not to go to war with the United States,” said Cheong Seong-chang, an analyst at the Sejong Institute near Seoul. And many fear that would mean giving the North the ultimate blackmail tool - and a way to keep the United States at bay. Most believe the Trump administration, despite its tough talk, will ultimately acquiesce, perhaps settling for a freeze that allows the North to keep a small arsenal. But they also oppose risking a war with a military solution. Given the failure of sanctions, threats and negotiations to stop North Korea, South Koreans are increasingly convinced the North will never give up its nuclear weapons. Security Council can’t rein in North Korea with its sanctions, we will have no option but to withdraw from the Nonproliferation Treaty,” Won Yoo-chul, a party leader, said in September. The opposition Liberty Korea party called on the United States to reintroduce tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea in August after the North tested an intercontinental ballistic missile that appeared capable of reaching the mainland United States. Now people often complain that South Korea cannot depend on the United States, its protector of seven decades. Japan already possesses long-range missile technology, he added, but would need some time to develop more sophisticated communications and control systems.Ĭalls for nuclear armament used to be dismissed as chatter from South Korea’s nationalist fringe. “Building a physical device is not that difficult anymore,” said Tatsujiro Suzuki, former deputy chairman of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission. Moniz, chief executive of the Nuclear Threat Initiative and an energy secretary in the Obama administration, noting that it would take years if not decades for Japan to consume its fissile material because almost all its nuclear plants have remained offline since the 2011 Fukushima accident.Ĭhina, in particular, has objected to Japan’s stockpile, warning that its traditional rival is so advanced technologically that it could use the material to quickly build a large arsenal.Īnalysts often describe Japan as a “de facto” nuclear state, capable of building a weapon within a year or two. ![]() “We keep reminding the Japanese of their pledge,” said Ernest J. But it has never completed the necessary recycling and has 10 tons of plutonium stored domestically and another 37 tons overseas. ![]() Japan once pledged never to stockpile more nuclear fuel than it can burn off. Kissinger, one of the few nuclear strategists from the early days of the Cold War still living, said he had little doubt where things were headed. This brutal calculus over how to respond to North Korea is taking place in a region where several nations have the material, the technology, the expertise and the money to produce nuclear weapons.īeyond South Korea and Japan, there is already talk in Australia, Myanmar, Taiwan and Vietnam about whether it makes sense to remain nuclear-free if others arm themselves - heightening fears that North Korea could set off a chain reaction in which one nation after another feels threatened and builds the bomb. Last Sunday, he won a commanding majority in parliamentary elections, fueling his hopes of revising the nation’s pacifist Constitution. ![]() ![]() Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has campaigned for a military buildup against the threat from the North, and Japan sits on a stockpile of nuclear material that could power an arsenal of 6,000 weapons. There is very little public support for nuclear arms in Japan, the only nation ever to suffer a nuclear attack, but many experts believe that could reverse quickly if North and South Korea both had arsenals.
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