India has detonated nuclear devices in defiance of the international community, because it feels insecure. Japan might do the same thing were it to lose the security which the U.S. alliance provides. India's first nuclear testing since 1974, and the likelihood that Pakistan will follow suit, raise the specter of the end of the nuclear 'taboo'. Many Japanese have responded by renewing calls for total nuclear disarmament. While understandable, that response could work to undermine Japan's security. It is only strategically insecure countries, such as India has become, that seek security in an independent nuclear deterrent. The real message for Japan is that alliance with the United States has solved Japan's "nuclear problem", because of the assurance provided by extended deterrence. If Japan were to lose faith in the value of alliance protection, it might be tempted to follow the Indian example. Japan is surrounded by nuclear-armed and potentially hostile neighbors (including perhaps in a future united Korea). Despite the strength of Japanese pacifism, if Japan became strategically isolated and insecure, it would be tempted to acquire nuclear weapons, as well as long-range maritime capability. That could destabilize the whole region, since few trust Japan. It is doubtful whether the United States will be able to restrain Pakistan from also testing a nuclear weapon, and the next few months could be dangerous. The best that can be hoped for is that India and Pakistan might then deter each other. In that case, India might feel secure enough to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), as New Delhi is already hinting. Why does India, once the champion of nuclear disarmament, now seem such a threat to regional stability? India's resumption of testing has domestic roots, in the coming to office of an extremist Hindu party with a shaky grip on power, which seeks legitimacy in strident nationalism. Status is also involved, given India's size and pretensions. India was a holdout in its refusal to sign the CTBT in 1996, arguing that it was being discriminated against. Why should the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (UNSC) be the only states to have nuclear weapons, the Indians complained. Yet domestic politics and status aspirations alone cannot explain why a long-established democracy like India, which has played by the rules, is now openly defying the international community, even risking the sanctions that are usually imposed only on rogue states. India's post Cold War insecurity is the answer. India has badly needed a replacement for the nuclear protection it lost when the Soviet Union collapsed. Unable to find a substitute, and faced with a resurgent China -- allied to India's traditional enemy Pakistan -- India has decided to declare openly that it has nuclear weapons. India's growing fear of China is another strategic consequence of the end of the Cold War. It's not that China has suddenly become powerful, or that it has waved its nuclear weapons at India. Rather, China is now enjoying unprecedented strategic latitude because of the retrenchment of Soviet military power from its frontiers. That new latitude is firing China's ambition and sense of historical grievance. As China's confidence has risen, so has India's sense of vulnerability. India has drawn its own conclusions from China's use of force and threat, both in the South China Sea and against Taiwan. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China would be able to veto any military action against it under the UN Charter. China and India fought a border war in 1962, and territorial disputes remain. China has also supplied Pakistan with missile technology, and recently Pakistan tested a medium range missile. In the last few weeks, India has been complaining that Beijing has gained a strategic foothold in Burma, on India's eastern flank. Fear of encirclement has added to Indian insecurity. Although India feels threatened, Japan need not. Alliance with the United States provided security for Japan during the Cold War, and continues to do so. Any country contemplating attacking, or even threatening Japan, would have to think very carefully about how the United States would respond. The dual function of the alliance, by constraining as well as protecting Japan, has also provided security for the wider region. Without the American military presence in Japan, China would feeling even less inhibited than it does now. America's ability to constrain China, and to maintain a balance of power in East Asia, depends on a combination of nuclear deterrence and global maritime flexibility. With the end of the Cold War, prudent reduction of nuclear armaments can proceed. So can efforts to find a reliable nonproliferation regime. But nuclear weapons will not disappear, partly because their technology is known and will not be unlearned. Nuclear weapons are also too useful, although no-one wants to see them used. (The famous nuclear paradox.) Russia relies ever more heavily on its nuclear arsenal because its conventional forces are so weak, and nuclear weapons are now Moscow's sole claim to great power status. That's one reason President Yeltsin has not joined in condemning India, nor canceled a forthcoming visit. Meanwhile, China can bask in the unfamiliar role of good international citizen. All in East Asia know that China is the only regional great power which possesses nuclear weapons. That gives Beijing immense leverage. China has no intention of giving up these weapons, although it is quite willing for present purposes to chant the mantra of nuclear disarmament. China will be delighted to see India in the sin bin, even though Chinese missile sales to Pakistan have done much to fuel this crisis. China can now look to even greater rewards from President Clinton's forthcoming visit. It's always hard for democracies to think strategically in the absence of a clear and present danger. But it would be very risky to assume that nuclear deterrence has become irrelevant to Japan's security, or that it involves unacceptable dangers. While Japan may lack strategic ambition, it does not lack strategic anxieties. Any breakdown of the US-Japan alliance would oblige Japan to look to its own security, and nuclear weapons are the 'isolationist's dream'. India, by seeking security in its own nuclear arsenal, is following a well-trodden path. China, for example, acquired an independent nuclear capacity in the 1960s after it lost confidence in Soviet alliance protection. Alliance with the United States gives Japan every reason to avoid this path. Robyn Lim is Professor of International Relations at Hiroshima ShudoUniversity. An earlier version of this article appeared recently in The Japan Times.
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