Body
With some regularity, analysts trot out the prediction that North Korea’s nuclear program could induce Japan to go nuclear. Elizabeth Bakanic provided a relatively balanced review of the issues several years back for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. We have never been convinced; the nuclear taboo still runs deep--particularly after "3/11"--and the US would certainly have something to say on the issue.
These inhibitions do not hold with respect to missile defense and space issues, however, as Saadia Pekannen—one of our favorite Japan specialists—argues in her book on Japanese space policy In Defense of Japan: From the Market to the Military in Space Policy (Stanford University Press). In a useful interview with the National Bureau of Asian Research, Pekannen elaborates. A few takeaways:
- Unlike nuclear technology, which once again has received emotional public condemnation in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster, space technology is not stigmatized in Japanese domestic politics.
- Japan has now developed independent capabilities for solid- and liquid-fuel rockets and a wide spectrum of advanced satellites that can be reconfigured for military uses if needed.
- The 1998 and 2009 North Korean missile launches both were larger shocks to Japan than they were to the US, but the development of a space capability in Japan goes well beyond the interest in deepening U.S.-Japan cooperation in ballistic missile defense (BMD), which is already taking place.
Mainichi reports on recent developments on this front, which will almost certainly include deployment of Aegis capabilities; land-based systems are still under consideration.
