埼玉英語会 英検１級・準１級　コミュのWill Ukraine invasion push Japan to go nuclear?

How could Japan ever contemplate getting nukes? It's a ridiculous idea.
Japan is the only country in the world to have suffered a nuclear attack.
Twice.
Japan acquiring nuclear weapons is unthinkable.
The people would never accept it. Right?

Right.

Or so the story has gone for the last 77 years.

But in the last few weeks one Japanese politician has started suggesting otherwise.
He is Shinzo Abe, Japan's longest serving post-war prime minister.
Mr Abe has begun saying loudly and publicly that Japan should,
indeed, think seriously and urgently about nuclear weapons.

What we are talking about here is a fundamental break with Japan's post-war
commitment to pacifism - something enshrined in its post-war constitution.

But it's no coincidence this call-to-arms has come just as Russia has invaded Ukraine.



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Mr Abe is not suggesting Japan build its own nuclear weapons.
He's suggesting it borrow some from America.

Largely forgotten in the post-cold war world is the fact is that Germany, Belgium,
Italy and the Netherlands all store US nuclear weapons on their soil.

More than that, if there were a nuclear war, these non-nuclear weapons states
could "deliver" those weapons to targets on behalf of the US, using their own aircraft.

This is what Mr Abe is now proposing for Japan.


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In fact, Japan is already far from being a true pacifist state,
whatever its constitution proclaims.

Its navy is now amongst the most powerful in the world - quite a bit larger than
Britain's Royal Navy. What Japan lacks is long-range strike capability.