The launch of a Hwasong-12 missile by North Korea in September. Credit Korean Central News Agency
New York Times: North Korea Rouses Neighbors to Reconsider Nuclear Weapons
As North Korea races to build a weapon that for the first time could threaten American cities, its neighbors are debating whether they need their own nuclear arsenals.
The North’s rapidly advancing capabilities have scrambled military calculations across the region, and doubts are growing the United States will be able to keep the atomic genie in the bottle.
For the first time in recent memory, there is a daily argument raging in both South Korea and Japan — sometimes in public, more often in private — about the nuclear option, driven by worry that the United States might hesitate to defend the countries if doing so might provoke a missile launched from the North at Los Angeles or Washington.
In South Korea, polls show 60 percent of the population favors building nuclear weapons. And nearly 70 percent want the United States to reintroduce tactical nuclear weapons for battlefield use, which were withdrawn a quarter-century ago.
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WNU Editor: This was unthinkable only 10 years ago ....especially in Japan. Today .... openly talked about. Tomorrow .... who knows.
North Korea's neighbors need to develop their own nuclear arsenals. I've been saying this for 25 years. In fact, I first put forth this in a college paper I prepared in 1992. I'm pleased to see that people are FINALLY catching on.
ReplyDeleteIn the paper, I stated that official US government policy needed to be to firmly yet respectfully push these natiions to develop their own nuclear arsenals. This would lessen the stress on the American military and would imorove relations with these countries.
The next step for the US should be to encourage these nations to develop their own nuclear arsenals helping them where and when we can. Their alliances with America should be contingent on this. In other words, faikure to develop indigenous nuclear arsenals will mean the end of American support. This needs to be combined with a timetable whereby we can finally redeploy US military assets away from the region.
It is nice to see that someone is finally catching on. The sooner this happens the better.