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Say what you will about North Korean tyrant Kim Jong Il – and many commentators have done just that, calling him crazy, delusional, erratic, suicidal and psychologically unbalanced – but do not underestimate the shrewd intellect and evil genius of this dangerous man. For behind the veil that conceals reality from perception, Kim is a sinfully clever strategist who has duped presidents from the United States to South Korea, prime ministers from the United Kingdom to Taiwan, and international organizations from the United Nations to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Now Kim’s latest target is Japan.
Kim has been monitoring with great interest the recent political debate in neighboring Japan about whether the island state should raise a military. Pitting liberal traditionalists against conservative nationalists, this debate could mark a pivotal moment in Japanese history.
Were Japan to build an army, navy or air force, or all three, it would in doing so forsake its national commitment to pacifism that has endured for over a half-century – because ever since the dusk of World War II, the Japanese Constitution has renounced the twin sovereign rights to declare war and to maintain offensive armed forces.
But today Japan stands on the brink of shedding its pacifist skin. It is not difficult to understand why. After all, the longstanding American pledge to defend Japan from foreign aggression has never been less reassuring than it is now. Given just how thinly the American military is currently stretched as it fights wars along two brutally unforgiving fronts in Afghanistan and Iraq, the prospects are dim that the United States could mount a third campaign to defend an ally even as geostrategically important as Japan.
Against this threatening backdrop, Japan is left standing virtually alone as it stares down the barrel of colossal foreign policy challenges: managing escalating tensions with a newly emboldened Russia, navigating the rough waters between China and nearby Taiwan, and preparing for all contingencies in the face of North Korean brinkmanship toward South Korea.
No wonder Japan is giving serious thought to resurrecting its military.
Japan is playing right into Kim Jong Il’s hands. With Japan once again a military power in the region, old tensions would heighten and new ones would develop – and Kim would have it no other way. Not only because it would ease the glare of the light shining on his ghastly regime but also because it would induce a recalibration of national relations in the region.
China would come to look upon Japan with even more suspicion than it already does, Russia would see its military dominance in the region compromised, and South Korea, which has not always enjoyed amiable relations with Japan, would find itself surrounded by military powers on all sides. Not to mention that the United States – only a stone’s throw away across the Pacific Ocean – would worry that Japan, now removed from the American military umbrella, could disrupt the delicate diplomatic balance that the United States has cultivated in the region, admittedly with varying success.
All of this is disconcerting enough. But the real cunning of Kim Jong Il is nowhere more clear than in his prevarications on nuclear disarmament. Kim has always kept the international community guessing as to his real intentions. His duplicity has allowed him to wield untold leverage, even when he was in no position to demand it.
Since the 1990s, North Korea has aggressively pursued its nuclear weapons program, beginning by launching plutonium and uranium enrichment programs, then withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and subsequently expelling international weapons inspectors. Kim later agreed in 2007 to allow the return of inspectors and to dismantle his nuclear program in exchange for economic assistance, security pledges and diplomatic privileges. But just last week, after the United Nations Security Council had rebuked North Korea for its rocket launch in early April, Kim once again expelled inspectors and vowed to resume his nuclear weapons program.
Kim’s actions have left Japan understandably more worried than ever before. For if Kim cannot be persuaded to forego his nuclear ambitions by all that has been offered to North Korea over the last decade – including billions of dollars, boatloads of food, a non-aggression pact, diplomatic recognition and removal from the list of state sponsors of terror – then Japan must assume that nothing will convince Kim to turn away from his dream of a nuclear North Korea.
Japan has responded to Kim Jong Il’s latest moves by openly contemplating the possibility of not only forming an active military but at the same time also itself becoming a nuclear military power. Shoichi Nakagawa, a prominent member of the governing party in the House of Representatives, recently declared that Japan should consider developing nuclear arms because only they are capable of deterring someone with Kim’s growing weapons arsenal.
Should Japan indeed become a nuclear military state – something that is fully within its reach given that Japan is currently among the world’s largest producers of nuclear energy, and therefore possesses vast quantities of the plutonium needed to equip nuclear warheads – that will give Kim every motivation to keep building his nuclear program because he will be able to claim, disingenuously to be sure, that his weapons are for purely defensive purposes.
A nuclear Japan will moreover divest the international community of its most effective argument in future negotiations with North Korea, namely that the world is moving progressively toward nuclear disarmament. That is precisely the argument that Kim wants so terribly to undermine.
The North Korean trap is therefore set for Japan. If Japan falls for the trap – either by renouncing its pacifist tradition to build a military equipped to wage war or, worse yet, a military equipped to wage nuclear war – the first casualty will be Japan’s honorable post-war legacy of peaceful diplomacy. Other casualties much more tragic may follow soon thereafter.
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(Richard Albert is a constitutional scholar and political scientist. He is currently president of the Canadian Council for Democracy in Ottawa, Ontario. He welcomes email at richard.albert@ccd-ccd.com. ©Copyright Richard Albert.)
