Separated by a common enemy

Already under consideration before North Korea's nuclear test last week, the LDP's push to include plans for an indigenous capability to strike North Korea to preempt an attack on Japan has picked up speed over the past week. On May 26th, Prime Minister Aso Taro reminded reporters that since 1955 preemptive self-defense has been considered legal. The same day a subcommittee of the defense division of the LDP's Policy Research Council approved a draft of proposals to include in this year's National Defense Program Guidelines (NDPG) that calls for preemptive strike capabilities, especially sea-launched cruise missiles. On the 28th, the prime minister once again asserted the legality of preemptive strikes, this time in proceedings in the Upper House Budget Committee.

In the midst of this debate, Mainichi called for a less passionate debate that acknowledges the risks associated with this step, including the feasibility of preemptive strikes against North Korea, the consequences for the US-Japan alliance, and the dangers of arms racing and security dilemmas in East Asia. I second Mainichi's concerns: there are a number of questions that advocates of preemptive strike capabilities have yet to answer, most notably the question of what independent Japanese strike capabilities add to US capabilities.

It now appears that the US government may be contributing to the debate over Japanese preemptive strike capabilities.

Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on Saturday, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates delivered a message to Japanese and South Korean elites worried about the sturdiness of the US commitment to its East Asian allies:

The Republic of Korea and Japan have since become economic powerhouses with modern, well-trained and equipped armed forces. They are more willing and able to take responsibility for their own defense and assume responsibility for collective security beyond their shores. As a result, we are making adjustments in each country to maintain a posture that is more appropriate to that of a partner, as opposed to a patron. Still, though, a partner fully prepared and able to carry out all – I repeat, all – of our alliance obligations.

This message is ambiguous, welcoming greater allied contributions while reaffirming the US role in defending its allies, especially via extended nuclear deterrence, but Sankei's Komori Yoshisa believes that there is more to the story. The Obama administration, he writes in an ecstatic post at his blog (if two exclamation points are any indication), has signed off on preemptive strike capabilities. His evidence is derived from interviews of Gates and Wallace Gregson, assistant secretary of defense for Asian-Pacific affairs by Asahi's Washington correspondent Kato Yoichi in which both officials appear to accept Japan's having the ability to strike at threats outside its borders. Gates's statement is vague, premised on the notion of "If Japan decides" to acquire more offensive capabilities, i.e. practicing what he has preached about the US being a partner instead of a patron. Gregson, while also reluctant to comment on what is a domestic matter for Japan, was open to a new division of labor between the US and Japan.

I appreciate that the US officials are refraining from overt interference in Japan's internal political discussions, but I think that the US has reasons to be concerned about this shift. (I also think that Komori is fishing for US support for his position. But a pair of quotes in an Asahi article do not a new policy make.)

Apart from the aforementioned reasons for skepticism about Japan's acquiring autonomous strike capabilities, there is another reason why the US should be concerned about this debate in Japan.

Arguably one reason for the difference in US and Japanese approaches to North Korea — apart from geography, the abductees, and domestic politics — is the US alliance with South Korea. Japan's North Korea policy can be conceived solely in terms of Japanese national interests, defending Japanese lives and property from the rogue state next door. The US approach to North Korea is broader. Not only is the US concerned about the threat posed to the US by the possibility of the transfer of nuclear materials, but it is worried to a lesser extent about the durability of the global non-proliferation regime. And it is not only concerned about the threat to Japanese security, but South Korean security as well.

The conflicting demands of the US-South Korea and US-Japan alliances are a source of turbulence in the US-Japan alliance. The US, legally committed to the defense of South Korea, has to think carefully about its words and actions vis-à-vis North Korea — indeed, the US is deterred from launching a preventive and perhaps a preemptive war against North Korea due to the threat posed by North Korean conventional capabilities to Seoul. This lends an air of restraint to US pronouncements on North Korea. As Sam Roggeveen writes, it is possible to read Gates's speech in Singapore as outlining a containment policy in recognition of the considerable obstacles in the way of denuclearization. It also bears recalling the decision by the US government ruling out in advance an attempt to shoot down North Korea's test rocket. That decision has been interpreted by Japanese elites as evidence of the shakiness of the US defense commitment. Maybe so, but it may be more appropriate to view the US not as lacking commitment to Japan's defense but having concerns greater than Japan's defense.

Which is why the US (and South Korea) should be concerned about Japan's acquiring independent preemptive strike capabilities. Japan, not having any alliance relationship with South Korea, will have no reason to take South Korea's security into consideration in confronting North Korea. If the Japanese government detects an imminent launch — with the autonomous surveillance capabilities that conservatives also wanted included in the NDPG — it will be able to act solely on the basis of the direct threat posed by North Korea's missiles to the Japanese homeland. It will not have to consider whether launching a preemptive strike will lead North Korea, fearing a mortal threat to the DPRK regime or perhaps not being able to identify the source of an attack, to lash out against South Korea. Unconstrained by broader regional commitments, Japan could use its new capabilities for "offensive defense" and in the process trigger a broader regional crisis — not out of a lust for conquest, but simply out of a desire to defend itself from an external threat.

This may be an unlikely scenario: after all, it is not clear that the NDPG will include plans for preemptive capabilities, and even if strike capabilities make their way into Japan's defense plans, they may amount to nothing more than a token force. And Japan may not be able to gather the necessary intelligence for attacks against North Korea's mobile launchers.

However unlikely, South Korea ought to reach out to Japan in order to close the gap, in effect forcing Japan to think about broader regional security when it considers the threat posed by North Korea. In other words, it is necessary for South Korea (and the US) to undo the damage done when the Japanese government decided to make recovering the abductees the central goal of Japan's North Korea policy. That decision produced a Japan solipsistic in its approach to North Korea, inclined to view North Korea through its distinct lens, barely considering the perspectives from which other countries have struggled to manage North Korea.

It is encouraging that the US, Japan, and South Korea had their first ever defense ministerial meeting in Singapore Friday. If Japan is to acquire its own strike capabilities, it has to be prepared to wield them responsibly, considering the consequences that saber rattling, to say nothing of preemptive strikes could have for other countries in the region. Regional security and stability is a Japanese national interest, even without formal alliance commitments in East Asia. Realizing that, perhaps Japan's leaders will become more appreciative of US efforts to uphold regional security — especially the defense of South Korea —and less unnerved by US restraint, in turn lessening the need for independent capabilities.

A nuclear Japan is not an option

Roy Berman calls attention to conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer's call for the US to negotiate with Japan over the acquisition of nuclear weapons.



Arming with Japan satisfies Krauthammer's desire for action, which he believes as superior to the multilateral efforts he considers a "humiliation." The target of a nuclear Japan, Krauthammer admits, would not be North Korea — it would be China. He argues that a nuclear Japan would force China to move to pressure North Korea.

Of course, this could have the opposite result of leading China to redirect whatever effort it has directed to impoverished North Korea's tiny and unsophisticated arsenal to the sophisticated arsenal that a nuclear Japan would deploy.

But aside from Krauthammer's dubious assertion that China will be bludgeoned into bludgeoning North Korea by the mere existence of a nuclear Japan, Berman calls attention to the not inconsiderable domestic obstacles in Japan that make Krauthammer's proposal fanciful. How can the US "unleash" Japan if the Japanese people and a significant portion of Japan's elite do not want to be unleashed in the first place? The Japanese government has made a clear commitment to the US-Japan alliance over autonomous defense capabilities. If anything, these preferences are even more applicable when it comes to nuclear weapons.

(It bears noting that Llewelyn Hughes ably made the case for why Japan will not go nuclear in International Security in 2007.)

There is no problem that will be solved by a Japanese nuclear arsenal — only the problem of how Japan's conservatives can leave behind the postwar regime. In effect, the implication of Krauthammer's proposal is that a Japanese nuclear arsenal is desirable because it is less predictable than the US nuclear arsenal. A nuclear Japan would be a wild card in the region. The US nuclear umbrella by contrast is stabilizing. As I wrote the other day, the task for the Obama administration is to do whatever necessary to reassure Japan that the nuclear umbrella remains in place. The administration will not help its cause by overstating the impact of North Korea's latest test. As Stephen Walt writes, "...The Obama administration should avoid making a lot of sweeping statements about how it will not 'tolerate' a North Korean nuclear capability. The fact is that we've tolerated it for some time now, and since we don't have good options for dealing with it, that's precisely what we will continue to do."

A study in powerlessness

With its second nuclear test in three years, North Korea continues to illustrate the limits of the power of the US, China, and the international community as a whole.

The underground test, conducted on Monday, appears to have been more successful than the October 2006 test — although it is unclear just how much of a success it was. As Geoffrey Forden wonders, this test could have been a failed test of a 20KT device or a successful test of a miniaturized 4KT device. Pyongyang will undoubtedly be glad to keep its neighbors guessing which is the case.

The response from Japan and other countries has been predictable. Prime Minister Aso Taro spoke of the gravity of this latest development for Japanese national security and stressed cooperation with the US and the international community at the UN Security Council. The House of Representatives moved swiftly to draft a resolution condemning North Korea that could pass as early as Tuesday. The LDP leadership called the test "outrageous." Okada Katsuya, the new DPJ secretary-general, echoed the government's sentiments. Japanese conservatives used the test to advance their argument for a more robust Japanese security posture. Abe Shinzo, continuing his comeback effort, demanded firmer sanctions against North Korea, especially against North Korean counterfeiting activities, called for preemptive strike capabilities, and was vaguely supportive of a debate about acquiring nuclear weapons ("A debate on matters of national security ought to be conducted freely"). Komori Yoshihisa said that the test illustrates the limits of the multilateral management of the North Korean problem and argued that Japan, doing whatever it needs to do defend itself, should reopen the debate on a nuclear deterrent. A Sankei "news" article informs readers that North Korea has the power of life and death over Japan, based strictly on the range of the missiles it possesses. In other words, much like last month's rocket launch, the responses of Japanese political actors to North Korea's second nuclear test have followed wholly predictable patterns — and show just how powerless Japan is to stop or reverse North Korea's nuclear program.

Of note is that Japan's conservatives once again have responded as if the US-Japan alliance and its nuclear umbrella does not exist. Indeed, it is remarkable how cavalier the conservatives are in their disregard for the nuclear umbrella. This is now the standard conservative argument: play up the North Korean threat, play down the US ability to meet that threat, and let a vicious cycle of fear and doubt take over. Do the vast deterrent capabilities of the US really count for nothing in the face of North Korea's piddling (and shrinking) arsenal? North Korea may be able to deter a first strike aimed at toppling the Kim regime, but is the US somehow incapable of deterring North Korea from launching a suicidal strike against Japan? Of course, back North Korea into a corner to the point where the regime has nothing to lose and then I too may question the ability of the US or anyone else to deter North Korea from doing something like firing a Rodong in Japan's direction.

Which is why the response of the conservatives is the height of folly. Threatening the very survival of the regime is a good way to make North Korea undeterrable. It's an unpleasant task, but North Korea's neighbors are responsible for talking (or buying) North Korea down from the ledge. To wit, criticism of the "talk over pressure" approach is equally foolish. If the goal of negotiations is to halt and reverse North Korea's nuclear program, then yes, it is an abject failure. But if the purpose of multilateral diplomacy is to keep talking North Korea down from the ledge and to buy time for its neighbors to plan for regime collapse and to push for gradual opening of the north (however halting), then "jaw-jaw" is essential and must continue, despite the nuclear test. I for one think there is no alternative to the latter.

Hence the distinction between capabilities and power. The US is unquestionably capable of deterring a nuclear strike against Japan, but it takes compellent power over North Korea's actions. Being unable to make a credible threat of regime change and visibly dependent on Beijing to pressure Pyongyang, Washington has little power other than its deterrent power. Japan, even with a nuclear arsenal of its own, would have even less power over North Korea. This is the unanswered question in the conservative response to every act of provocation by North Korea. If the US is unable to guarantee Japanese security through its immense nuclear arsenal — again, the unstated (or occasionally stated) basis of the argument for a Japanese arsenal — how would a Japanese deterrent be any more powerful? I understand that they could argue that the problem isn't US capabilities but US commitment, but I have yet to see a convincing demonstration that the US commitment to defend Japan from attack is flagging to the point that Japan would require its own nuclear weapons. I do not think the Japanese public is convinced either.

So given that North Korea has successfully deterred the US and others from initiating regime change, what choice do the participants in the six-party talks but to turn to the UN to condemn the test and then try once again to engage North Korea via the talks? Meanwhile, the governments of the region should continue to treat every day that Kim Jong-il lives as another day for them to plan for regime collapse.

And as for the ongoing effort by Japanese conservatives to undermine the nuclear umbrella? Mr. Roos, you have your work cut out for you.