via toru
北朝鮮を抑止するため日韓は核武装すべきだ、と。
China cannot stop North Korea. To do so, it must change the regime. But even if it has the ability to do so, the Chinese Communist Party is not willing to effect regime change in a fellow Leninist state. The preservation of its own rule is the most vital of all the CCP’s interests. Intervening to change the regime in Pyongyang could give Chinese citizens inconvenient thoughts about their own system. No matter how angry the CCP is with North Korea, that is too great a risk. Beijing has taken symbolic actions against Pyongyang but tolerating a nuclear North Korea is the least bad option.
Pyongyang, therefore, will have to be dealt with by deterrence. And it can be deterred: the regime is bad but not mad. It is coldly rational, calculating exactly how far it can go in any set of circumstances. For example, Pyongyang didn’t pay any significant cost after blowing up a South Korean passenger aircraft in 1987 or sinking a South Korean navy ship in 2010, killing 46 sailors. Once Pyongyang has the capability it believes it needs to ensure the survival of its regime, it has no reason to risk annihilation.
The Obama administration’s approach of so-called “strategic patience” was a failure. But the Trump administration is doing the right thing. Trump’s statements are extreme but they are in accordance with the essential logic of deterrence.
Once North Korea can directly threaten the continental U.S., the question is bound to be asked: Will the U.S. sacrifice San Francisco in order to save Tokyo? Of course not. Still, North Korea is a catalyst, not a cause; Pyongyang’s quest for a nuclear capability may cause this awkward question to be asked sooner, but it will eventually be asked anyway. China is modernizing its own nuclear forces and will eventually acquire a more credible second strike capability vis-à-vis the U.S. One way or another, American extended deterrence in Northeast Asia will be eroded, as it was decades ago in Europe.
Northeast Asia will respond as France and the U.K. did in the 1950s and 1960s respectively. Japan has the ability to quickly develop an independent nuclear deterrent. It is now only a matter of when, not if, Japan does so. Tokyo has been preparing for this eventuality — with American acquiescence and perhaps assistance — for decades.
Where Japan goes, South Korea must follow. I don’t think Japan and South Korea are eager to become nuclear-armed states, nor is Washington eager for that to happen. But for all three, this is also the least bad option. Japan and South Korea will remain within the U.S.-led Northeast Asian alliance, just as France and the U.K. remained within NATO. But a six-way balance of mutually assured destruction — among the U.S., China, Russia, Japan, South Korea and North Korea — will eventually be established in Northeast Asia.
Getting to this new situation will be fraught with serious tension. China will pull out all stops short of war to prevent Japan going nuclear, raising the shibboleth of Japan’s remilitarization to try and rally Americans, Japanese, Koreans and others in East Asia against Tokyo. But it will fail. And the U.S.-Japan alliance will deter China from preemptive military action against Japan. War with the U.S. cannot end well for China; it would jeopardize the CCP’s rule.
The decision to go nuclear will be extremely difficult for any Japanese government, far worse than the backlash against the U.S.-Japan security treaty in the 1960s and early 1970s. But when America’s extended deterrence is eroded, a Japan without an independent nuclear deterrent would be subordinate to China. This is an existential issue for Japan. Ever since Toyotomi Hideyoshi invaded Korea in the 16th century in explicit defiance of the Chinese world order of the time, refusal to accept subordination to China has been an integral part of the Japanese sense of identity. To accept subordination would require a wrenchingly painful redefinition of what it means to be Japanese, which I do not think the Japanese will accept.
However difficult the process of getting to a six-way balance of mutually assured destruction may be, once established, it will be stabilizing. All six countries are rational and are functioning polities. The North Korean regime is brutal, but it works. Despite numerous predictions of its imminent demise, it is still here after more than 70 years. North Korea is certainly more coherent than Pakistan, which is also a nuclear-armed state but constantly teetering on the brink of failure.
A Northeast Asian balance of mutually assured destruction will freeze the status quo. It will be an absolute obstacle to the revanchist ambitions that are embedded in the narrative of the “great rejuvenation” of China by which the CCP now legitimates itself and which are manifest in the East China Sea and the South China Sea. China’s reclamation activities in the South China Sea cannot be reversed, nor will China give up its claims. But forcing China to at least suspend its ambitions at their current level will make for more stable Sino-American and Sino-Japanese relations and a more stable East Asia.
中国が北朝鮮に介入しない理由として、北朝鮮政権が変わるなら、中国も政権も変わるかも、と市民が思ってしまう、とまずい、というのですが、それはないんじゃないかな。
日韓は仏英が1950年代、あるいは60年代に核武装したように、核武装するだろう、と。
日本がいやいやながらも、核武装する理由として、そうしないと、自国が生き残れない、また、中国の属国になるのは死んでも嫌、と属国になったら日本人が日本人じゃなくなっちゃう、という意識が歴史的に染み付いている、と。
米中露日本南北朝鮮が核武装することで、6つ巴の形の抑止効果があり、少なくとも、そうすることで、地域の現状を維持できる。
可哀想なのは、台湾で、台湾に核武装させると、中国は戦争も辞さないから、アメリカは台湾については核武装させちゃいけない、と。
ーーー日米同盟を維持しながら、日本を核武装させたほうが、アメリカにとってもお得、とアメリカが納得すれば、アメリカも、決断し、日本に核武装を促す日もくるかもしれませんね。
