North Korea tests nuclear limits

There is very l i ttle that could lead Japan, with its understandable aversion to nuclear weapons, to ponder arming itself with its own nuclear strike force. North Korea is testing exactly how far that reluctance goes.

Japan, which was bombed twice with nuclear weapons, was forced to trigger civil defence sirens and emergency alerts this week after North Korea fired a ballistic missile over the home islands. North Korean missile l aunches are all too routine, but this, although not entirely unprecedented, was deliberately provocative. Most North Korean launches land harmlessly in the sea. This one deliberately overflew Japanese territory and military officials would have been anxiously monitoring radar analyses for several long minutes before they would know for certain that it would miss Japanese soil.

North Americans still feel removed from the threat of North Korea’s arsenal. The Japanese know no such luxury. The country has invested heavily in missile defence systems and remains close to the U. S. But Tokyo could not have failed to note the conflicting messages coming out of Washington ( i ncluding adviser Steve Bannon, while still employed by the White House, telling a reporter that the North Korean problem had no military solution). Washington might be prepared eventually live with containing Pyongyang, but Japan seems to have no interest. It’s disarmament or bust.

If disarmament is impossible, what then?

There would be many obstacles to Japan arming itself with nuclear weapons. The country has the funds and technological sophistication to develop a small arsenal of weapons to act as a deterrent force; the obstacles are cultural and diplomatic. Japan is a signatory of the NonProliferation Treaty. The Japanese public has long been adamantly opposed to basing U. S. warheads on Japanese soil. They’d feel little better about having their own.

But existential threats have a way of focusing the mind, and the Japanese view a nuclear North Korea as exactly that. They aren’t alone: the South Koreans — which have also elected not to nuclearize, despite having the financial and technological means — recently conducted a series of tests of ballistic missiles, showcasing their impressive accuracy. Such missiles would be most effective if armed with nuclear payloads. Seoul knows this.

We would rather not see Japan or South Korea arm themselves with nukes; a world with fewer terrible weapons is a better world. But the utter failure of international efforts to block the North’s development of a viable nuclear arsenal will, nevertheless, have consequences. One could quite possibly be a drive by these states, and perhaps others, to arm themselves with the ultimate weapons in the name of national self- preservation. This would not be a happy end. But there are, unfortunately, even worse ones.