Professors Moritz Graefrath (right) and Mark Raymond of the University of Oklahoma.
A recent opinion piece in the United States advocating for Japan's nuclear armament is generating complex reverberations.
Though still subtle, it reflects a shift in how some American strategists view the prospect of Japan acquiring its own nuclear arsenal.
Widely regarded as the leading journal on foreign policy, the mid-November issue of Foreign Affairs featured an article titled "America's Allies Should Go Nuclear: Selective Proliferation Will Strengthen the Global Order, Not End It".
It was co-authored by Moritz Graefrath and Mark Raymond, two young scholars at the University of Oklahoma.
When Allies Go Nuclear
At its core, the paper argues that the US should reconsider its long-standing Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty policy and actively encourage three of its allies — Canada, Germany, and Japan — to develop their own nuclear capabilities.
With China and Russia seeking to chip away at the US-led global order, in part by brandishing nuclear threats, the authors contend that deterrence would be strengthened if three trusted democracies acquired an independent weapon.
Doing so, they suggest, would also ease the strategic burden shouldered by their mutual ally in Washington.
Regarding Japan, the authors argue that an independent nuclear capability would materially strengthen the American nuclear umbrella. That, in turn, would bolster deterrence as China pushes its hegemonic reach across East Asia through a rapid nuclear buildup.
Stalled by US Objections
Looking back, arguments for Japan's potential nuclear armament have a long pedigree. In 1975, John Endicott, who would later serve as Vice President of the National Defense University, published a seminal study titled "Japan's Nuclear Option."
At the peak of the Cold War, policymakers grappled with whether Japan might need its own nuclear deterrent should the US umbrella over the archipelago collapse.
Strategic studies at the time suggested that Japan could, in principle, gain the capability to strike Moscow directly by deploying a handful of nuclear-powered, missile-armed submarines in the Arabian Sea.
Washington, however, maintained that Tokyo should not be permitted to pursue such a course.
Debate Back on the Table
Yet by October 2006, the debate resurfaced. Charles Krauthammer, one of the most influential conservative voices in Washington, urged that the US should recommend nuclear armament for its reliable ally Japan in response to North Korea's emerging nuclear capability.
The idea was not confined to academic circles. At House Foreign Affairs Committee hearings in July 2009 on North Korea and China's nuclear programs, Democratic Congressman Eni Faleomavaega remarked that it was only natural for questions to arise over whether Japan might one day need its own nuclear weapons.
Two years later, in July 2011, Congressman Steve Chabot, a Republican on the same committee, echoed the sentiment, saying that Japan should seriously consider nuclear armament.
In February 2013, security expert John Bolton warned in a commentary that if China fails to rein in North Korea's nuclear ambitions, a nuclear-armed Japan would become an increasingly plausible outcome.
The following month, at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on responses to Pyongyang's nuclear program, several lawmakers openly debated the prospect of Japan pursuing its own nuclear arsenal.
A Shifting Washington Consensus
By now, it is evident that Washington's long-standing posture of reflexive opposition to Japan going nuclear has eroded.
More recently, in July 2022, University of Illinois Professor Choi Seung Whan argued in an opinion piece that Japan and South Korea should both acquire independent nuclear arsenals.
While the latest Foreign Affairs article comes from the private sector, it nonetheless signals a significant shift in the prevailing strategic mood.
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Author: Yoshihisa Komori, Associate Correspondent in Washington for The Sankei Shimbun
(Read this in Japanese)
