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Originally Posted by hi_im_god
japan can go nuclear anytime they want. they don't need us for that. but it's culturally difficult for them. and no one in the far east wants to see japan declare itself an offensive military power. that's a non-starter.
plus, how does a nuclear armed japan threaten n. korea more that a nuclear armed america? i just don't get that.
and abm's are a joke. we have trouble shooting down single test targets on planned trajectories. what do you think happens when it's multiple live target's mixed with dummy warheads? which one do you choose for the 33% chance that you actually hit it?
you can talk about bloodying the bully's nose because you don't live in seoul. n. korea doesn't need a nuke to turn it to dust. it's 30 miles from one of the largest concentrations of conventional artillery in the world.
there are no good choices.
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So there being no good choices, in your opinion, translates to doing nothing? Letting them continue to unnerve nations in the region and around the world?
When you say "no one in the far east wants Japan to become an offensive military power", I guess that includes North Korea? Would you automatically consider a nuclear Japan to be offensive, when the weapons are only for deterrence and counterattack? The very cultural difficulties you reference would ensure their acting only defensively -- they are not tje Japan of Imperial times up until World War II.
A nuclear Japan is more of a threat than America because the response time is that much faster. It's the same reason that Russian missiles based in Cuba are more of a threat to the U.S. than Russian ICBM's based in Siberia. They are both Russian missiles with the same capabilities and effects, but with shorter flight times the probability of an effective first strike goes up, as does the fear they stir. Plus, with a country like North Korea where they can't launch ICBM's of their own, they are in the position of being targeted by a sniper but having only a .22 to shoot back with. They'll behave.
I only mentioned ABM's because there is a conventional force there already (29000 U.S. GI's -- which I'd like to bring home) and while no one would seriously protest South Korea's right for defensive weapons, putting missiles actually on South Korean soil would be construed as an escalation.