COLLEGE PARK, MD. -- Almost no nation on earth is more sensitive to nuclear issues than Japan. While it has been a beneficiary of living under the U.S. security umbrella, current U.S. policies now endanger its security.
Although it exists in a dangerous part of the world, U.S. nuclear protection has allowed Japan to avoid undertaking its own superpower-type military build-up. But the price of this protection is excessive for this nuclear-phobic country. Now Japan is learning that, despite having declared its intention to remain a non-nuclear nation more than 30 years ago, it could easily be drawn into American conflicts.
A recently uncovered 1962 secret State Department memorandum revealed how American military cargo planes were on alert in Okinawa, ready to supply nuclear weapons to U.S. forces at three U.S. air bases in Japan. Okinawa, which was under U.S. authority until 1972, was a particularly important staging point for U.S. nuclear operations. The document assumed that these forces would be involved in a crisis on the Korean Peninsula. It shows how Japan could become deeply and easily involved in tactical nuclear war scenarios, even without the consent of the Japanese government.
Another document from the same period showed how the U.S. planned to use its bases in Japan to solidify its nuclear forces from a possible attack by the Soviet Union. While bringing nuclear weapons into Japan was seen as a militarily effective tactic for winning a total nuclear war in the Far East, it also would have exposed the nation to the threat of nuclear retaliation.
These documents are very disturbing for Japan, which is still suffering the aftereffects of the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And since the U.S. retains the threat of first use of nuclear weapons, which continues to occupy an preeminent position in U.S. military strategy, these war scenarios continue to be relevant.
This has contributed to instability in the already unsettled region. In the decade since the end of the Cold War, the security environment in the Far East has not improved. Preparations for war continue on the Korean Peninsula, despite hopes that last week's summit meeting between the North and the South may help reduce tensions. China continues to express grave reservations about the situation with Taiwan, and the arms race there appears to be heating up again.
And now the United States threatens to complicate the situation further with its proposal to deploy a Theater Missile Defense system in the region. This defense system has the financial support of a Japanese government that feels threatened by North Korea's nuclear and missile projects. In addition, the U.S. restored nuclear targets in China to its war plans in response to that nation's modernization of its limited missile force.
All these steps have lowered the threshold for the possible use of nuclear weapons in Asia. They have placed additional emphasis on nuclear weapons, despite the commitment to diminishing their role and eliminating them.
Given these conditions, there are serious doubts whether Japan will be able to adhere to its unique Three Non-Nuclear Principles: that it will not possess, manufacture or allow nuclear weapons on its territory.
Even though the U.S. military withdrew its tactical nuclear weapons from Asia in the early 1990s, Japan remains vulnerable to nuclear threats as long as it continues to rely on the U.S. defense umbrella. The only ways out of this quagmire are for the United States to diminish the role of nuclear weapons in its defense planning, declare a non-first use policy and dramatically decrease the total number of nuclear weapons in existence.
Masakatsu Ota is a Fulbright Research Fellow in the Program
on General Disarmament at the University of Maryland.