'2+2' Security Talks: Is Japan Almost Cured of its Nuclear Allergy?

United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin included an "extended deterrence dialogue" (EDD). They they met their Japanese counterparts Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa and Defense Minister Minoru Kihara in Tokyo on July 28 for their 2+2 US-Japan Security Consultative Committee talks. 

The Japanese and Americans have held EDD talks since 2010, but never at this level.

Simply put, "extended deterrence" refers to nuclear weapons. It includes America potentially using its nuclear arsenal to defend Japan, which has no nukes of its own. 

Japan was keen to hold this high-level discussion. It wanted to be sure of America's "nuclear umbrella" – not least to avoid nuclear blackmail and deter attack from its nearby adversaries, China, North Korea, and even Russia. 

The late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was a leading, even outspoken, proponent of American nuclear coverage. Indeed, he even suggested he wouldn't mind if the US stored nukes in Japan.   

The Americans prefer Tokyo settle for a "trust us" approach but know that won't happen.

Japan wants specifics and assurances. Outright guarantees would be even better.   

Military Buildup of China and North Korea

China has carried out a massive military buildup over the last 30 years. Given this, the conventional balance of power in East Asia is troubling enough for Japan. Add in nukes and it's even worse.

China has the nuclear weapons to blanket Japan at least several times over. And it has suggested it just might. As well, North Korea has dozens of nuclear weapons.  

Not surprisingly, Japan is edgy.

The Americans need to assuage Japanese concerns. This requires specifics – and not oratory and reassurances of "ironclad" commitment. More than anything, the US needs to convince Tokyo it has the will to act.

Whether Secretaries Blinken and Austin succeeded is an open question, at best.  

Japanese Paradox

There's something paradoxical about all this. 

Japan is supposedly a pacifist country. If so, it has always been a strange sort of pacifism. Japan has a sizable military - even if it's called a self-defense force.

And pacifist Japan has always been happy to have the American forces standing by to exterminate anyone threatening the country.

That's pacifism with a difference.

But when it comes to nuclear weapons the paradox is even more…well…paradoxical.

Japan is the only country to have been attacked with atomic bombs, twice in 1945 in the latter stages of World War II.  

It has pushed for nuclear non-proliferation for decades and still does.  

But one senses the Japanese nuclear allergy is in part genuine and in part psychosomatic. It is all enabled by the promise of US nukes being available. Moreover, for a long time, Japan believed it would never face a threat that required them.

Japan's aversion to nuclear weapons perhaps has less to do with the weapons themselves, and more to do with the catastrophe Japan suffered during World War II. Additionally, the 1941-1945 war was only a follow-on to a costly, bloody quagmire in China starting in 1931.

The Terrible Casualties of War

The American firebombing raids on Tokyo were no less horrific than the nuclear attacks in August 1945. In fact, no Japanese city of any consequence was spared. Ground combat in the Pacific was equally ghastly.

Japan suffered around 3 million military and civilian deaths during the war. Adjusted for population size, this would be as if the United States suffered around 6 million dead – versus the 300,000 military personnel killed and near zero civilian casualties in that war.

After the war ended, there were victory parades in the US and the GI Bill that put veterans into colleges and houses.  Post-war Japan was in shambles and was a place where people could starve to death.

The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki encapsulated the wartime death and suffering. It's no surprise nuclear weapons were taboo.

But times have changed and the threats to Japan are real and imminent. 

Most importantly, Japan has always been willing to do what's necessary to defend itself. That is regardless of its constitution, which has been reinterpreted many times, as needed, since shortly after it was enacted.

Explicitly and publicly bringing nuclear weapons, American ones for now, into Japan's defense calculus isn't so surprising. It's common sense.

A Nuclear Arms Race in Asia?

The fear in Washington for many years was that a nuclear-armed Japan would lead to an Asian nuclear arms race.  

However, that race has been going on for decades. And the only sides playing are the communist dictatorships in Beijing and Pyongyang.  

And they're winning.  

Raise enough doubt about the US nuclear commitment – and they've won.

Can the United States give a solid enough commitment to the Japanese?

They tried, as they always do.  But it's a tall order. 

Japanese leaders might consider the US government's performance since it let the South Vietnamese fall to communist invasion in 1975. And they might conclude that a promise the US will do something is no guarantee it will do anything.

Tokyo might reasonably doubt that an American administration would automatically risk its own destruction on behalf of another country – no matter how "ironclad" the commitment is declared to be.  

Could Japan 'Go Nuclear'?

Implicit in Japan's insistence on extended deterrence, is the unspoken suggestion (I wouldn't call it a threat) that it might build its own nuclear weapons if it can't rely on American coverage.

Building nuclear weapons and developing a capability to deliver them isn't hard if Japan wishes to do so.

One observer familiar with both nuclear weapons and missiles commented to me a while back:

"If they want a simple atomic bomb, no sweat. If they want a boosted atomic bomb, maybe a slight bit of sweat. If they want a full-fledged hydrogen bomb, some sweat but no insurmountable obstacles."

"Japan does build and launch rockets and is experienced with nuclear reactors. So politics aside, they should have no problem fielding a nuclear-armed ICBM in a (short while) if the desire is there. It is hard to think of any critical technology they couldn't develop quickly if they didn't have it already."

One wonders if Japan might be quietly hedging their bets no matter what Blinken and Austin said this week. And no matter who becomes US president in January 2025.

Things have reached that point.

One can't blame Japan.  And that might not be a bad thing.  

If angry dictatorships have nuclear weapons, maybe more democracies ought to have them as well.

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Author: Grant Newsham

Grant Newsham is a retired US Marine officer and former US diplomat with a long history in Japan-US security relations. He is a senior fellow at Yorktown Institute and Center for Security Policy and the author of the book "When China Attacks: A Warning To America."