Japan’s Nuclear Hedge: Beyond “Allergy” and Breakout

Abstract

JAPANESE STRATEGISTS HAVE LONG BEEN AMBIVALENT about nuclear weapons. On the one hand, memories of horrific nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki have sustained antinuclear sentiment and helped justify national policies championing nonproliferation and forgoing an indigenous nuclear arsenal. This “nuclear allergy” has been diagnosed as a genetic condition, and associated institutional and diplomatic constraints on nuclear breakout have been invoked to predict that Japan will find it virtually impossible to reverse course on nuclear weapons. Japan's non-nuclear bona fides are well established. Until its revision in 2012, Article 2 of Japan's Atomic Energy Basic Law (1955) stated clearly that research, development, and utilization of atomic energy is limited to peaceful purposes.1 Japan joined the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 1957 and has generously supported the agency's work. After considerable debate and delay—and the receipt from the United States of much greater latitude for nuclear fuel handling and reprocessing—Japan ratified the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in 1976 and supported the treaty's indefinite extension in 1995. Japan also ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1997 and was the first to sign the IAEA's Additional Protocol in 1998, allowing a stricter regimen for IAEA inspections of Japanese nuclear facilities.