Out of the woodwork

THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF JAPAN owes its victory in the August lower house elections to the electorate’s long-standing desire for sweeping reforms in the conduct of government and the realization that they weren’t going to get it from the Liberal-Democratic Party as presently constituted. But in much fewer than the 100 days often used as a benchmark for political performance elsewhere, it has become apparent that the only sweeping the DPJ’s new brooms will do is hide its reform promises under the carpet. Meanwhile, the party’s victory has had the unexpected byproduct of unfastening the lid on the Pandora’s box of their membership and allowing some unappealing specimens to ooze into public view. One of them is Kushibuchi Mari, as we’ve seen here.

Another is Hatsushika Akihiro. In Tokyo’s 16th district, Mr. Hatsushika defeated Shimamura Yoshinobu, who formerly served as Education Minister and Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries Minister. Mr. Shimamura had served nine terms in office and is 75 years old, 35 years older than his handsome challenger. The desire for new blood as well as change was likely a factor in Mr. Hatsushika’s victory.

But what does Mr. Hatsushika believe beyond the standard political boilerplate? He gave the country an idea on his Japanese-language website in this translated message posted on 30 July 2002.

*****

In Japan, we generally use the term Kitachosen (North Korea) to refer to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Most Japanese use the term Kitachosen without a second thought. But is that the appropriate name for the country?

As you know, the Joseon people are now divided into two countries at the 38th parallel. The southern part is called the Republic of Korea, and the northern part is called the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The Japanese people generally use the term Kankoku to refer to the country in the south. The use of the name Chosen (Joseon) for the northern part enables it to be distinguished from Kankoku. But the word North is added.

The people of Joseon are in fact extremely uncomfortable about the name. They are dissatisfied with this term because they are aware it refers to one region in the northern part of the Korean peninsula and doesn’t recognize that they are a country. We probably aren’t aware of it, but the people who first used the term Kitachosen likely did so with that in mind.

Solid diplomatic relations cannot be formed unless both partners in a relationship recognize each other as countries. If the people of one country want the people of another country to respect them, they have to respect the other country in the same way.

That’s why I don’t use the term Kitachosen. I make every effort to call the country Joseon or The Republic because the people of Joseon are as proud of their own country as I am proud of the country Japan. I do not think we should negligently wound their pride.

****

Mr. Hatsushika wrote this blog entry when North Korea still maintained it had not abducted Japanese citizens. Just two months later, Kim Jong-il came partially clean to then-Prime Minister Koizumi Jun’ichiro and admitted they had occurred after all.

Alas, that entry on Mr. Hatsushika’s blog exists no longer. Someone’s erased it. Was he concerned that it might have an untoward effect on his election campaign? Has he never heard the expression about information wanting to be free?

But Mr. Hatsushika left a few blank spaces in his explanation of how words are supposed to mean things. Let’s fill some of them in.

* The Japanese government has a treaty with South Korea in which it recognizes the latter as the only lawful government on the Korean Peninsula.

* Mr. Hatsushika is not alone in his choice of Joseon or The Republic as the names used to refer to North Korea. Those are the names preferred by the DPRK itself, as well as the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, or Chongryon, and they reject any other. The latter group is closely allied with North Korea, supports the country’s juche ideology, and is opposed to the integration of its members in Japanese society. Six of its officials are also delegates of the Supreme People’s Assembly, which the reference books say is the name of the North Korean “parliament”.

* Chongryon does not refer to South Korea as Kankoku. Instead, it uses the term Minamichosen (as it would be Romanized from the Japanese). The Japanese term for North Korea, Kitachosen, means North (Kita) Joseon (Chosen). Minami is the Japanese word for south.

* The Japanese media in the past used to refer to the North as Kitachosen while including the full Democratic People’s Republic of Korea name at least once during each report, at Chongryon’s request. That ended with the revelation of the truth about the abductions. The news media noted that they didn’t use the formal name of any other country in their reports.

* Chongryon operates about 60 schools nationwide for the children of its members, including one university. Pictures of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il adorn the classroom walls. According to the Chongryon newspaper, Hatsushika Akihiro is a strong supporter of those schools. He’s also visited North Korea—or should we say The Republic?—several times.

* The Korean pronunciation of the Chinese characters for Kankoku (South Korea) would be Hanguk, which those familiar with the Korean language will instantly recognize.

Fancy that: here’s another member of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan sitting in the Diet who’s an ally of an enemy of the state. (Friends of the state wouldn’t kidnap its citizens and hold them for some 15 years, now would they?) And since he’s at the ripe young age of 40—and wrote that blog post at the age of 33—Mr. Hatsushika had to have formed his views when the criminal venality of the Kim Family Regime had never been more obvious.

It would seem that the personality type of the poseur lifestyle Leftist is a universal phenomenon. Instead of wearing Che Guevara t-shirts, the Japanese fancy the Kim Jong-il model instead.

Where did this defender of neo-Stalinism come from, and how did he get where he is?

Pyeongyang's pal in the Diet

It’s a fascinating story. Mr. Hatsushika was graduated from the University of Tokyo with a degree from the Faculty of Law. That has traditionally been the point of departure on the elite track for those interested in a career in politics or government. Mr. Hatsushika seems to have gotten intellectually sidetracked, but he still wound up at the station punched on his ticket. He entered politics by being elected to a seat on the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly on his second try.

Japanese political parties usually determine the candidates they choose to support for Diet seats themselves without holding primary elections for the voters. That means the DPJ thought Hatsushika Akihiro was worthy of a seat in the Japanese Diet.

It probably also helped that he worked as an aide to DPJ head and current Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio between his first and second try for a Tokyo Metro seat.

It’s time to revisit James Delingpole again, speaking to Americans about their 2008 presidential election:

“I warned the U.S. of the ‘smorgasbord of scuzzballs, incompetents, time servers, Communists, class warriors, eco-loons, single-issue rabble-rousers, malcontents and losers who always rise to the surface during a left-liberal administration….it becomes a problem – as you’re about to discover, if you haven’t already – when your ruling administration consists of nothing but these people. No longer do they qualify as light relief. They become your daily nightmare…. Making these predictions was a no-brainer because it’s exactly the same process as we’ve witnessed in Britain these last twelve years under New Labour.’”

This would seem to be another universal phenomenon.

Instead of voting in reformers, the Japanese electorate inadvertently flipped the lid on a Pandora’s box filled with the most motley of crews. Their promises have been broken with childish excuses, they are reinforcing the bureaucratic influence rather than weakening it, and they are conducting the business of government with tragicomic incompetence.

This weekend, U.S. President Barack Obama is meeting with Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio, the patron of Hatsushika Akihiro. The meeting is likely to go smoothly. After all, they have much in common, starting with an amateurishness in handling the affairs of state and conducting blatantly illegal fund-raising operations.

And continuing with the similarity in the views of their political associates.

Shimojo Masao (3): North Korea’s insistence on bilateral talks

HERE’S the third in a series:

*****
Why Does North Korea Insist on Achieving Bilateral Talks with the U.S.?

One North Korean objective for its insistence on bilateral talks with the United States is to maintain the current order. It is a historical fact that the state established on the Korean Peninsula considered relations with the great powers to be of utmost importance. An ironic result of its approach was that the life span of that state was longer than those of the Chinese dynasties, which boasted immense authority as a suzerain. Both the Goryeo and Joseon dynasties lasted roughly 500 years each, but that same period in China saw the rise and fall of the Five Dynasties/Ten Kingdoms, as well as the Song, Liao, Jin, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties.

The state on the Korean Peninsula was incorporated into the Chinese tributary system as a vassal. Therefore, it was difficult for a change in dynasties to occur on the Korean Peninsula if local unrest did not occur simultaneously with the waning of a Chinese dynasty. Those on the peninsula had to resign themselves to accepting military sanctions when the Chinese suzerain was at full strength.

If the North Korean regime were able to engage in direct negotiations with the United States, the world’s superpower, and obtain an ironclad promise that the current order would be maintained, it would legitimize their continued existence, both domestically and overseas. That would enable them to hold at bay the United States, China, South Korea, Russia, and Japan in the Six-Party Talks, and seize the initiative in those talks. Obtaining that diplomatic card is the North Korean expectation for bilateral talks with the United States.

Historically, this type of diplomacy is based on playing up to the powerful, in the sense of using a great power to maintain one’s own position.

- Shimojo Masao

Four days in North Korea

HERE’S ANOTHER depressing account of life in Northeast Asia’s workers’ paradise, written by Sarah Wang for Slate.

Perhaps the most telling part of the article is the account at the end. Ms. Wang wanted to wander around at night for herself, but was prevented from doing so.

The island on which our hotel stood was guarded, and we could not leave at night. There may not have been any point going out anyway: There are no streetlamps, and after sunset, the only lights came from the windows of residential buildings. Around 9 o’clock, all the lights were turned off, and the city sank into darkness.

Yet she managed to get past the guards during a heavy rainstorm because they gave her only a cursory glance from under their umbrellas. She got lost in Pyeongyang–it was dark, after all–and then returned to the hotel.

When I returned to the island, I visited the revolving restaurant on the hotel’s 47th floor. It offered a panoramic view of Pyongyang, but there was nothing to see except the darkness.

Ms. Wang’s account differs from most because she includes a brief description of the elites. The pigs have learned to walk on their hind legs in this part of the world, too:

The train for Pyongyang had 15 cars, but only the three “international compartments” had fans to fight the sweltering heat. Well-dressed North Koreans took up the majority of seats in the compartment. The women wore silk blouses, nice skirts, and high heels, and the men were decked out in good T-shirts, which sometimes showed off their big bellies. They were the only fat North Koreans that I saw on the trip.

But there were also some odd passages. Here’s one:

There is no Internet access in North Korea—the Pyongyang elite use an intranet to listen to music and watch movies.

Entertainment is not the first thing that comes to mind when I think of the Internet, but I’m probably out of step with the modern world.

Here’s another:

Our guides repeatedly reassured us that the people had enough food and that each Pyongyang resident receives a ration of vegetables and rice every day. They didn’t mention meat or fruit…On one occasion, I drew a banana on a piece of paper and showed it to a waitress; she had never seen one. She knew about apples, but she had never eaten one.

So what did she bring them to eat?

I brought 150 Kit-Kat bars into the country, and I always took several out of my bag when I was alone with a North Korean. They would hesitate for a few seconds, look around to make sure that no one else was watching, and then stuff the Kit-Kats into their pockets.

I understand that she wanted to bring them a treat, but giving all that refined sugar junk to malnourished people? Gack!

Bring 150 bars of dark chocolate or a more healthful snack the next time!

UPDATE:

While we’re on the subject of North Korea, the always interesting DPRK Studies website links to this English-language Chosun Ilbo article on a new book by Chang Jin-song, formerly associated with the North Korean Workers’ Party, about the Dear Leader’s personal life. Here’s the first sentence of the article:

Yun Hye-yong was a woman beyond the reach even of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il. Yun, the lead singer of Kim’s former favorite band Pochonbo Electronic Ensemble, was brutally executed after she spurned Kim’s persistent advances and fell in love with another man.

Security forces discovered her affair with the band’s keyboard player because they had tapped her phone.

It would seem that “absolute monarch” would not be an inappropriate word to use for the world’s most powerful otaku. Here’s the article speaking about a different woman:

Kim loved her more for her bold personality and sharp wit than her looks, and granted her the privilege of speaking informally to him.

“Privilege”? That says it all right there, doesn’t it?

How hot does Kim Jong-il like it?

VERY HOT indeed, if the latest reports are to be believed.

Start with this one from Fox News. It says American intelligence officials have advised their government North Korea will take four steps in response to a new U.N. Security Council resolution condemning their recent nuclear test. The four steps are:

1. Conducting another nuclear test
2. Reprocessing all of their spent plutonium fuel rods into weapons-grade plutonium
3. Escalating their uranium-enrichment program
4. Launching another Taepodong-2 intercontinental ballistic missile

An additional American concern is that they’ve lost track of the North Korean missile.

“…(W)here American intelligence officials on June 9 observed components for the long-range Musudan missile leaving the Wapo-ri installation area, they have now “lost track of them,” FOX News has learned.

“We spotted the TELs [Transporter-Erector-Launchers] and then we lost track of them,” a source said. “NGA lost track.”

NGA refers to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, a unit the Defense Department that provides imagery and geospatial information for military and civilian purposes.

“It’s disturbing,” the source added.”

It should be more than disturbing, but the Chinese think everyone should just chill out instead. Relax, they say, it’s no big deal. The North’s overall strategy is to pressure the West, rather than start a war, according to this article in the Asia Times.

“North Korea has never abided by any agreement, and tearing up the truce with the South comes as no surprise,” Zhang Liangui, an expert at the Central Party School, which trains communist officials here, told the Southern Weekend newspaper. “This is an act aimed at pressuring the West, and not an indication of an impending military conflict.”

But if the Chinese realize North Korea has never abided by any agreement, why are there six-party talks, and why are the Chinese participating in them? If Pyeongyang intends to pressure the West, presumably the objective is to sign an agreement with the United States to guarantee their continued existence. Meanwhile, the Chinese expect the North to ignore its part of the bargain.

Of course the North will ignore it. Only nations with a sense of morality live up to their obligations.

That same article quotes a Chinese source as saying Beijing believes it can’t deny North Korea nuclear weapons because the North is just following the Chinese route to international respectability:

The outside view that China has the most leverage over North Korea but does not want to exercise it is skewed,” said Zhan Xiaohong, researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. “The North believes that it is simply following China’s example of using military power to gain the international respect it lacks because of its backward economic situation. How could China deny Pyongyang that?”

Zhan points out that in the 1960s China went through a similar period. Emerging from a devastating three-year famine the communist country was desperately impoverished but resolved to develop its nuclear weapons.

“It was the nuclear deterrent that made great powers like the Soviet Union and America take count of China, and it was nuclear power that was able to guarantee the country’s peaceful economic development over the next decades,” said Zhan.

It doesn’t seem to have occurred to Mr. Zhan that North Korea’s adoption of a free market economic system and a democratic political system, as well as ending its international brigandry, would go a lot farther to guarantee the country’s peaceful economic development over the next decades than what they’ve been doing for the past half-century. The formula of the current North Korean system plus the H-Bomb certainly won’t.

There’s more. The Chinese are resisting efforts to include in a UN resolution a measure for the interdiction of suspicious North Korean ships:

China has warned that interdicting ships at sea on suspicion of carrying banned materials could provoke the North into a military response and at the very least discourage it from returning to talks on abandoning its nuclear program.

In other words, allow the country to continue testing its nuclear weapons and exporting nuclear materials to other blackguards around the world. Preventing them from doing so would discourage them from returning one of these days to the six-party talks and maybe signing an agreement they won’t comply with anyway.

Then again, maybe this is just an excuse for the impresario Kim to conduct the Joseon version of Götterdämmerung. The same Asia Times website has recently run two articles from one Kim Myong-chol, a Japanese-born man who retains Korean citizenship. He’s based in Tokyo, but is said to have close ties to the Dear Leader. Here’s how they describe him:

Kim Myong-chol is author of a number of books and papers in Korean, Japanese and English on North Korea, including Kim Jong-il’s Strategy for Reunification. He has a PhD from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s Academy of Social Sciences and is often called an “unofficial” spokesman of Kim Jong-il and North Korea.

In this case, “unofficial” spokesman seems to mean propaganda mouthpiece. He’s the head of the Center for Korean-American Peace, and the South Koreans have gone to the trouble to ban his books.

Here’s where we start to get really psychedelic. The first article, dated 21 May, says Kim has gone to Plan B. Who knew there was a Plan A? Well, here are Plan A’s contents as described by the author:

Plan A called for the DPRK to consider exploring a shortcut to enhanced independence, peace and prosperity through rapprochement with the US. Plan A obliged the Kim Jong-il administration to negotiate away its nuclear weapons program as part of a verified denuclearization of the whole of the Korean Peninsula in return for Washington’s strategic decision to co-exist peacefully with Pyongyang.

Plan A assumed the US would decide to leave behind its policy of hostility to the DPRK, conclude a peace treaty with North Korea, and pledge in a verifiable way it would not attack it with nuclear and conventional arms. It also assumed the US would establish full relations with North Korea, show respect for its sovereignty and independence, lift sanctions imposed on it, and provide it with fuel oil and light-water reactors.

Plan A was the engine behind the 1994 Agreed Framework with the Clinton administration and a series of nuclear agreements from six-party talks with the Bush administration, including the September 19, 2005 joint statement, the February 13, 2007 agreement, the October 3, 2007 agreement and the July 12, 2008 agreement.

Despite plan A, the US has remained hostile to North Korea as it is bent on its nuclear disarmament, painting it as a criminal state, and toppling its regime.

There’s some choice language in that passage, isn’t there? Plan A “obliged” the North to negotiate with the U.S., in return for Washington’s “strategic decision to coexist peacefully…establish full relations with North Korea, show respect for its sovereignty and independence, lift sanctions imposed on it, and provide it with fuel oil and light-water reactors.”

Doesn’t the phrase “delusions of grandeur” come to mind. Perhaps it’s time to reissue Leonard Wibberley’s 1955 novel with a new title: The Rat That Roared. (Note that the review called the original “eerily prophetic” in light of recent developments)

So, now that Plan A isn’t working, what’s the deal with Plan B? Take a deep breath:

Plan B envisages the DPRK going it alone as a fully fledged nuclear weapon-armed state, with a military-first policy, and then growing into a mighty and prosperous country. It will put the policy of seeking reconciliation with a tricky US, a helpless superpower with a crippled economy that is losing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, on the back burner.

The DPRK is equipped with all types of nuclear warheads, atomic, neutron and hydrogen, and their means of delivery puts the whole of the USA within effective range….The announced vow to quit six-party talks, restart nuclear facilities and conduct additional nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests is a clear message that the Kim Jong-il administration’s decision to shift to plan B is irretrievable.

Plan B calls for the DPRK to join all three elite clubs of nuclear, space and economic powers by 2012, without seeking improved ties or a peace treaty with the US, as the DPRK has built up an independent global nuclear strike force which can carry the war all the way to the metropolitan US rather than on the Korean Peninsula.

Lest you think that last phrase was just a throwaway line, a new article by the same author at the same site on 12 June is titled Nuclear War is Kim Jong-il’s Game Plan.

Here’s how it starts:

A little-noted fact about the second nuclear test conducted on May 25 by the Kim Jong-il administration of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is that it was a highly successful fission trigger test for multi-megaton warheads.

These types of warheads can be detonated in outer space, far above the United States, evaporating its key targets. This is a significant indication of the supreme leader’s game plan for nuclear war with the crippled superpower and its allies, Japan and South Korea.

Here’s how it continues:

The game plan for nuclear war specifies four types of thermonuclear assault: (1) the bombing of operating nuclear power stations; (2) detonations of a hydrogen bombs in seas off the US, Japan and South Korea; (3) detonations of H-bombs in space far above their heartlands; and (4) thermonuclear attacks on their urban centers.

He says the point of (3) is to render communications and electrical systems inoperable.

Mr. Kim gives us the skinny:

The Yongbyon nuclear site has always been a decoy to attract American attention and bring it into negotiations on a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War. Since as far back as the mid-1980, North Korea has assembled 100-300 nuclear warheads in an ultra-clandestine nuclear weapons program. The missiles can be mounted on medium-range missiles designed to be nuclear capable.

It’s understandable that some would dismiss this as the usual Pyeongyang gasconade, or the latest pathetic chapter of the opéra bouffe staged by the world’s most powerful otaku. After all, who expects North Korea to become an elite economic power by 2012? (Then again, it’s not as if anyone believes the economic projections issued by Western governments, either.)

It might be easy to dismiss Kim Myong-chol as a Northeast Asian version of Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, AKA Comical Ali. He was the Iraqi Information Minister during the American invasion in 2003 who provided information so absurd he became a cult figure for the ironically hip.

But a more compelling view is based on life experience that demonstrates actions speak louder than words. And we’ve seen plenty of actions: testing nuclear weapons and ICBMs, exporting nuclear weapons technology, sharing expertise with Iran and Pakistan, and helping build the facilities for such weapons in Syria. Nothing good can possibly come from any of that. Allowing it to continue means that one day, people are going to be killed in ugly ways for the ugliest of reasons.

It would be difficult to avoid the conclusion that North Korea and their Chinese enablers spot a golden opportunity in the identity, attitudes, and behavior of the current occupants of the White House. About the only Prime Time that group seems to be ready for is a political vaudeville revue hosted by a televangelist. Why should anyone be surprised that Pyeongyang and Beijing are busy trying to make hay while the sun shines? At this rate, they’re likely to wind up with enough to store in the barn for several winters, nuclear or otherwise.

The actions and words of North Korea, China, and the United States are of intense interest to the Japanese–it’s a matter of life and death for them. But Tokyo is still doggedly trying to work with the UN, for the time being.

Some in Tokyo have long wanted to amend the country’s Constitution with its so-called Peace Clause of Article 9. The Preface of that Constitution contains this phrase:

(W)e have determined to preserve our security and existence, trusting in the justice and faith of the peace-loving peoples of the world.

How much longer do you think it will be before they conclude that’s a sucker’s bet?

Trigger-happy Tokyo

SLIGHTLY MORE than six years ago, the American blogger Jim Treacher wrote this in response to the Michael Moore suggestion that Saddam Hussein be removed from power non-violently:

Good Idea! First we’ll coax Saddam out of his bunker with a trail of delicious candy. Then, once his belly is full and he’s all sleepy and happy, we’ll calmly explain that we don’t approve of what he’s been doing and it’s not very nice and we wish he’d stop. And he’ll be like, “Whoa, I never thought of it that way. You guys are my friends! I like you!” And then everybody will hug and cry, and then get a little embarrassed about crying, and then make some jokes to cover up being embarrassed. And then a beautiful rainbow will appear, and a shy unicorn will walk down it, and Saddam will ride the unicorn to the North Pole, and he’ll spend the rest of his life helping Santa make wonderful toys for all the good little girls and boys, and there’ll be hot chocolate, and, and, and, and nobody will ever ever die again for any reason ever. THE END

No, it’s not nice to quote someone else’s blog post in its entirety, but it’s even worse to mess around with a dead-on Internet classic.

I bring this up because it turns out that even though Saddam and his psychotic sons have met their final reward, the Pollyannas are still with us. Tom Plate has come up with an idea for dealing with Kim Jong-il remarkably similar to the parody above. Except Mr. Plate is serious. His suggestion?

Better to execute an Obama…and run circles around the North Koreans with an embarrassment of recognition and riches. Drop the embargo, establish a U.S. embassy in Pyongyang (we have no official representation there now ― can you believe it?), fatten the regime up with aid, accumulate leverage, change the behavior, establish regional peace ― try to be subtle, indirect and smart for once.

Now I ask you: How often does one encounter the combination of an ignorance of history (of the world, not just this part of Asia in the recent past), the apparent absence of practical life experience, and the Little Jack Hornerism of proclaiming oneself subtle and smart?

I understand that the Obama administration seems intent on throwing as many devalued dollars it can into a big ditch and burning them, but that’s no reason to encourage them to export the practice.

And yes, I know that the U.S has no official representation in Pyeongyang, and I think it’s a capital idea.

I ran across this at The Marmot’s site–I don’t have time for Mr. Plate any more–and he handles it well. He also provides a link to the Plate article for those disposed to read it.

I’ll take exception to one more thing that The Marmot overlooked:

…we don’t do that and here’s what we get: probably a destabilizing regional arms race ― amid a trigger-happy Tokyo. For it is hard to believe that the Japanese will sit tight with Pyongyang on a missile-test spree. For Japan, North Korea, in the midst of a leadership succession, is far more the enemy than China and, in case we haven’t noticed, the politics in Tokyo these days is volatile. The government is unstable and the opposition under reorganization. So Pyongyang is to Tokyo what Tehran is to Tel Aviv: a constant temptation to launch a preemptive strike.

A trigger-happy Tokyo? To paraphrase the immortal Calvin and Hobbes, someone’s been eating too much paste in art class.

And while the political situation in Tokyo may well be about to undergo a drastic shift, it’s hardly “volatile”. It’s just democracy at work.

Perhaps distracted by unicorns and moonbeams, it is Mr. Plate who has failed to notice a few things. Namely, that Tel Aviv has already done the world several favors by launching preemptive strikes on Iraqi and and Syrian nuclear plants, while Japanese preemptive military strikes have been non-existent since the early 1940s (they haven’t rattled so much as a kitchen knife, much less a saber, since then), and that the only method for dealing with psychotic thugs is the threat of a two by four across the snout while stepping firmly on their windpipe.

Ah, but Mr. Plate has written for Time, Newsday, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times, among others, and he’s now a professor at UCLA and writes syndicated columns about Asia on the side.

He’s got credentials.

This is all the more inexcusable considering a previous comment he published about Japan…

Remember that Japan remains, to its honor and credit, a largely pacifist and non-nuclear nation.

…for which I commended him in this piece. But he seems to think the country’s turned trigger happy in the past two years. Either that or his opinions change with the phases of the moon.

In the early 1930s, Joseph Stalin’s rule in Soviet Russia created a famine that killed an estimated 14 million and a system of prison camps and terror that killed millions more. As he was doing so, he was showered with praise, in Malcolm Muggeridge’s words, by “the great ones like Shaw and Gide and Barbusse and Julian Huxley and Harold Uski and the Webbs, down to poor little teachers, crazed clergymen and millionaires, and drivelling dons…” To show how little the world has changed, the New York Times Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty received a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting, which largely consisted of cover-ups and outright lies about the Soviet regime.

Do not misunderstand: I am not suggesting that Mr. Plate is guilty of the same crime against humanity that Mr. Duranty was, nor that he has become a willing dupe in the same way that Shaw and the Webbs were.

But Kim Jong-il is the closest replica the modern world has to Joseph Stalin, including the famines, the purges, and the prison camps. If one would retch at the idea of extending to Stalin “an embarrassment of recognition and riches”, why are we supposed to think that doing the same to the Kim Family Regime would be subtle and smart?

Afterwords:
Jim Treacher used to call his blog, Mother, May I Sleep with Treacher?, but he changed it. More’s the pity!

Bolton and Hewitt and Stromberg and Steyn on North Korea

EARLIER THIS WEEK we linked to John Bolton’s prescient article in the Wall Street Journal about the then-impending North Korean nuclear test. Mr. Bolton is a magnet for intense criticism of the type that erupts when clearly stated, straightforward views threaten to expose wishful thinking for what it is.

He appeared on the Hugh Hewitt radio program for a half hour on Wednesday to discuss the situation in Northeast Asia in more detail. Mr. Hewitt is a law professor (Constitutional law), website editor, and columnist in addition to hosting his own radio show.

Among the points Mr. Bolton made:

“…the administration is saying that they want, and Secretary Clinton said it again today, they want North Korea back at the six party talks. Now these talks have been underway for six years. They have utterly failed to restrain North Korea. And if you’re sitting in Pyongyang and hearing the administration both before the nuclear test and after the nuclear test say that that’s what they want the next step to be, the only conclusion you can draw on North Korea is that you’re getting a free pass on this test, and on subsequent tests down the road. The six party talks have failed. We need to get over that. Unfortunately, there’s no sign the administration understands it.

In the earlier post, frequent commenter Bender wondered what exactly could be done with North Korea short of a military attack. Mr. Bolton must have been reading the comment section.

First:

I personally think we’d need to stay away from the military option. I think that it’s risky no matter what the level of casualties.

Then:

…we need to take much stronger action against North Korea. I’d put them back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism. The Bush administration never should have taken them off that list. I would once again cut off their access to international financial markets. Here again, the Bush administration had them over a barrel with the Banco Delta Asia matter and let them escape. We need to put those constraints back in. We’ve had a big boost just in the past 24 hours from the government of South Korea announcing it was going to join…the U.S.-led proliferation security initiative, which is a major effort to stop international trafficking in weapons of mass destruction. And we need to put more pressure on China to use its leverage on North Korea either to get rid of Kim Jung Il or at a minimum, to constrain their ability to deal on these nuclear weapons internationally.

More specifically about the Chinese, he said:

The Chinese are concerned that if they put too much pressure on Kim Jung Il, the regime will collapse, and Korea will reunify. Well, here’s the news. Korea will reunify one day just like Germany did. This division of the peninsula is unnatural, and China can either be on the right side of history, or they can continue resisting it. We need to have stronger, more effective advocacy with China to get them to recognize the inevitable, and help us with Kim Jung Il.

But he is not sanguine about the latter:

I think that’s unlikely in this administration. Their priority seems to be climate change negotiations with China. My own view is that nuclear weapons in the hands of a regime like Kim Jung Il are a lot more serious threat to the U.S. and everybody else in the world today than climate change. But if you’re not willing to elevate North Korea’s nuclear program on the list with China, not much is going to happen.

He also discusses the Japanese potential for a nuclear weapons capability:

Many people think (it would take) only a matter of months. They have a very advanced civil nuclear program. They have substantial amounts of spent fuel with plutonium in the spent fuel that could be reprocessed. They have a very sophisticated scientific community. They have advanced missile capabilities now. They can launch their own satellites. So it wouldn’t take Japan long.

At this point, it’s worth taking another look at this report by the Congressional Research Service examining the possibility that the Japanese will acquire nuclear weapons. Here’s some of the advice the American Congress is receiving:

If Japan withdrew from the NPT, it would likely be subject to UN Security Council-imposed sanctions and economic and diplomatic isolation.

Reading this, one wonders how some people manage to stay employed.

The entire transcript of the Bolton interview is here.

Mr. Hewitt, by the way, is very much a fan of the Internet’s non-traditional role in the dissemination of the news. Here’s how he ended an article on the Columbia School of Journalism:

There is too much expertise, all of it almost instantly available now, for the traditional idea of journalism to last much longer. In the past, almost every bit of information was difficult and expensive to acquire and was therefore mediated by journalists whom readers and viewers were usually in no position to second-guess. Authority has drained from journalism for a reason. Too many of its practitioners have been easily exposed as poseurs.

As all of us here know, some of the most easily exposed and fraudulent of the trad journalism poseurs are writing about Japan.

Pre-publication update:

But there are blogs, and then there are the blogs written by the poseurs themselves.

Before this post was scheduled to run, I ran across this blog post by Stephen Stromberg in the Washington Post. I’ve read it at least a half-dozen times, and I still can’t tell for sure if he’s serious.

He suggests that Kim Jong-il made a mistake by conducting the test on the American Memorial Day holiday. Once upon a time, Americans would have realized the implicit danger to its credibility–and therefore its safety–by ignoring the obvious symbolism. Not any more.

Mr. Stromberg seems to think it’s a joke. (Please try to convince me otherwise.) He says that Kim’s test didn’t receive so much attention in the U.S. because it was a three-day holiday weekend, and the American media is more concerned with a Supreme Court justice nominee and the California court’s ruling on gay marriage. Now read this:

This isn’t a frivolous observation. Nuclear weapons are near useless if your adversaries don’t know about and actively fear the ones you’ve got.

Really? The people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki neither knew about nor actively feared the very useful bombs that fell on them.

What was that Hugh Hewitt said about poseurs again?

Mr. Stromberg and the Washington Post think the Obama administration shouldn’t treat this as a crisis. By that, they mean it shouldn’t hasten to offer the Kim Family Regime concessions, as the U.S. has done too often in the past. While the Post’s editorials call for some of the same measures Mr. Bolton did, they also think the nonexistent six-party talks are worthwhile, despite having been an utter waste of time.

I don’t think we have to worry about the too naturally cool Mr. Obama getting too excited. Copping a move from a rap star by pretending to dust off his shoulders, or scratching his nose with his middle finger is more his style. Hey, it worked with Hillary and The Washington Post, didn’t it?

But the poseurs (all of them) miss the point. For some reason, the WaPo seems to think that getting excited = giving North Korea more concessions. The proven equation doesn’t seem to have occurred to them; namely, getting excited = realizing the gravity of the threat and taking immediate steps to eliminate it.

As Mark Steyn points out:

The rest of the world doesn’t observe Memorial Day. But it understands the crude symbolism of a rogue nuclear test staged on the day to honor American war dead and greeted with only half-hearted pro forma diplomatese from Washington.

Still don’t get it?

Out there in the chancelleries and presidential palaces, they’re beginning to get the message. The regime in Pyongyang is not merely trying to “provoke” America but is demonstrating to potential clients that you can do so with impunity. A black-market economy reliant on exports of heroin, sex slaves and knock-off Viagra is attempting to supersize its business model and turn itself into a nuclear Wal-Mart. Among the distinguished guests present for North Korea’s October 2006 test were representatives of the Iranian government. President George W. Bush was much mocked for yoking the two nations together in his now all but forgotten “axis of evil” speech, but the Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung reported a few weeks ago that the North Korean-built (and Israeli-bombed) plutonium production facility in Syria was paid for by Tehran. How many other Iranian clients are getting nuclear subsidies?

So where’s all this leading?

While America laughed at North Korea, Iran used it as a stalking horse, a useful guide as to the parameters of belligerence and quiescence a nuclearizing rogue state could operate within. In…”the post-American world,” other nations will follow that model. We are building a world in which the wealthiest nations on the planet…are all but defenseless, while bankrupt dysfunctional squats go nuclear. Even with inevitable and generous submissions to nuclear blackmail, how long do you think that arrangement will last?

And how long do you think it will be before Japan wises up and gets serious about nuclear weapons now that we know the poseurs in Washington would rather lick their fingers at a backyard barbecue than pay serious attention to some blackhearted men in–yes–an axis of evil preparing to fire up a barbecue of their own.

Kim Jong-il picked a bad news cycle? Poseur doesn’t describe it.

Krauthammer: Convince Japan to go nuclear

THE WELL-KNOWN POLITICAL COLUMNIST Charles Krauthammer thinks the United States should encourage Japan to add nuclear weapons to its military arsenal.

He offers two reasons:

First, North Korea is a nuclear power. What we’ve done to deal with the country hasn’t worked in the past, and won’t work in the future.

Second, a nuclear-armed Japan is not only something for North Korea to think about, but also something for China to think about. North Korea would be unable to do what it’s doing if it weren’t for the enabling behavior of the Chinese. (Indeed, North Korean behavior suits Chinese purposes.) Mr. Krauthammer thinks this would make the Chinese get serious about reigning in their client state.

Yes, Mr. Krauthammer knows about the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. My opinion? Nuclear weapons aren’t a problem if they’re in the hands of responsible states. Japan is, and the three existing nuclear powers in Northeast Asia aren’t.

Here’s another thought: It’s been apparent for some time that a major political realignment is coming in Japan, and that the politicians are waiting until after the next lower house election to begin changing partners.

Until now, most people have focused on the domestic issues that will determine alliances in the future, such as the relationship between the political class and the bureaucracy, and the devolution of authority.

The events of the past week might make international issues in general, and military issues in particular, a factor more visible to the public in determining that realignment than has previously been the case. For example, there are about 50 Diet members more loyal to Ozawa Ichiro than they are to their party, the Democratic Party of Japan. The only policy to which Mr. Ozawa has consistently adhered since the early 1990s is what some even in his own party call U.N. supremacy; i.e., Japan can take no military action unless it is in concert with the United Nations. There are people in the ruling LDP who would find that acceptable, and those in the DPJ who do not.

Are you surprised?

ARE YOU SURPRISED that North Korea conducted another nuclear test? And fired more short-range missiles into the Sea of Japan?

Former American Assistant Attorney General, Undersecretary of State, and UN Ambassador John Bolton wasn’t. Here’s what he said a week ago:

The curtain is about to rise again on the long-running nuclear tragicomedy, “North Korea Outwits the United States.”

Are you surprised at how the current American administration views the issue?:

U.S. Special Envoy Stephen Bosworth said last week that the Obama administration is “relatively relaxed” and that “there is not a sense of crisis.”

Are you surprised that the Japanese and the South Koreans would not be “relatively relaxed” and do have a sense of crisis? They’re taking their complaint to the United Nations, however, which is analogous to phoning the local university’s debating society to tell them about gunshots in the neighborhood.

Are you surprised that the rogue state’s behavior became more roguish after the previous American administration chose dialogue and conciliation in its second term, and that it intensified after the inauguration of the new, blame-ourselves-first administration?

In April, Pyongyang launched a Taepodong-2 missile, and National Security Council official Gary Samore recently confirmed that a second nuclear test is likely on the way. The North is set to try two U.S. reporters for “hostile acts.” The state-controlled newspaper calls America “a rogue and a gangster.” Kim recently expelled international monitors from the Yongbyon nuclear complex. And Pyongyang threatens to “start” enriching uranium — a capacity it procured long ago.

Are you surprised that those two reporters were seized on the Chinese side of the border? And, as the DPRK Studies site notes, the American Secretary of State thinks the young women at Barnard College in downtown Manhattan should get on the Internet and give the North Koreans a piece of their mind?

Are you surprised that the new administration still hasn’t put two and two together yet?

Despite Pyongyang’s aggression, Mr. Bosworth has reiterated that the U.S. is “committed to dialogue” and is “obviously interested in returning to a negotiating table as soon as we can.”

Are you surprised that the North Koreans have spotted what they view as an excellent opportunity to do what they’ve always wanted to do, regardless of what they say? For example, in 2003:

The official Korean Central News Agency said that, although Pyongyang was pulling out of the NPT, it had no intention of producing nuclear weapons.
“Our nuclear activities at this stage will be confined only to peaceful purposes such as the production of electricity,” Friday’s statement said.

Are you surprised that people are still “committed to dialogue”, despite enough dialogues and broken promises to fill a small library? Again from 2003:

French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said: “It is a serious decision, heavy with consequences”. He is in China for two days of talks on the crisis.

If you start to wonder how heavy those consequences were, remember that M. de Villepin was a poet in his spare time.

The South Korean news agency Yonhap reported that U.S. President Obama telephoned South Korean President Lee and the two leaders agreed to punish North Korea.

Are you surprised that this is what Mr. Obama’s plans call for?:

They agreed to work closely together to seek and support a strong United Nations Security Council resolution with concrete measures to curtail North Korea’s nuclear and missile activities.

Will you be surprised if this month’s visit to the Security Council turns out to be as effective as last month’s visit?

The U.S. and its allies failed to push the 15-member security council to adopt a legally-binding resolution condemning North Korea’s April 5 rocket launch amid strong opposition from Russia and the North’s staunchest ally China.

A presidential statement was issued by the council instead, which called for sanctioning three North Korean firms involved in the trading of weapons of mass destruction and component parts.

Will you be surprised if the DPRK tests an ICBM before the Security Council meets? The Marmot links to a Korean-language report:

South Korea’s NIS, meanwhile, is warning that North Korea may attempt to test fire an ICBM as early as today.

Here’s one that’s no longer surprising: Some people never realize that some approaches never work, while the ones they dislike usually do.

Mr. Bolton repeats a warning he’s been making for some time now:

It’s time for the Obama administration to finally put down Kim Jong Il’s script. If not, we better get ready for Iran — and others –to go nuclear.

If the Obama administration doesn’t put down the Kim Family Regime’s script, don’t be surprised if those others include Japan one day.

UPDATE:
The Asahi Shimbun has just reported that, in addressing the view of some within the ruling LDP that Japan’s Self-Defense Forces need the capability to attack “enemy bases”, Prime Minister Aso Taro said:

“Under the law, we can (attack enemy bases) under a specific, pre-determined framework. It is my understanding that attacks have been allowed since (the period from the mid-50s to the mid-60s).”

The Asahi also notes that the government has not recognized the possession of the weapons themselves to be used to attack another country.

Don’t be surprised if he receives the strong backing of the Japanese people for this stand, regardless of what it says in the Japanese Constitution.

Cannibalism and torture part of everyday life in North Korea

THE ASIA TIMES has a curious article about the book Long Road Home: Testimony of a North Korean Camp Survivor, by Kim Yong as told to Kim Suk-Young.

From the descriptions, it would seem that North Korea is run like a concentration camp on a national scale. Mr. Kim’s personal experience shows:

“…just how drastically North Korea had regressed – to the point that unimaginable acts such as cannibalism and torture have become part of everyday life.”

He was once a member of the elite who drove imported automobiles, but wound up in a prison camp after being accused of treason. He worked underground at the camp and came to think of daylight as a luxury. After six years, he escaped with the help of old friends and made his way to the U.S. and agreed to be interviewed for the book to present the facts of North Korea to the world.

As the article points out, it is a North Korean version of Solzhenitsyn’s expose of the Soviet gulag. But the curiosity of the article is that the author, one David Wilson, spends almost as much time on Kim Suk-Young, the person who put the book together.

While Ms. Kim is to be commended for her work, readers would have benefited from a further description of the book’s content instead of a personality profile of the transcriber/interviewer.

The problem is compounded because Ms. Kim, a performing arts professor at the University of California, is a naive geopolitical lightweight:

“(She) describes the country as “strange”, noting that there is nothing you cannot buy if you have money despite the abiding power of communist ideology.”

There’s nothing strange about that–it’s a salient feature of every communist government that’s ever existed. What’s strange is Wilson’s use of the term “abiding power of communist ideology”. That ideology has no abiding power, and North Korea is obviously not run according to communist principles.

Ms. Kim also finds it noteworthy that North and South Korea are very much alike because they share the same sense of humor and respect family ties. Why shouldn’t they be culturally similar? They’re the same tribe!

Mr. Wilson calls this a “twist” for some reason.

“She is convinced that America is equally guilty of propaganda. Before making any uninformed assumptions about North Korea, the West should try to understand it, she said. Treat the country with respect is her message.”

Cannibalism and torture are everyday occurrences while the elite lives in luxury, and the country is always last in the World Press Freedom Index Rankings. It floods the world with date rape drugs and counterfeit currency, and adamantly refuses to end its unneeded nuclear weapons program. What “uninformed assumptions” from the “equally guilty” propagandist America could be worse? And why should a country such as this be treated with respect? Would she have also had us treat the apartheid regime of South Africa with respect?

But then what else would you expect from a UC drama professor?

An American view of a nuclear-armed Japan

RICHARDSON OF DPRK STUDIES does us all a favor in this post by bringing our attention to the Congressional Research Service report, Japan’s Nuclear Future: Policy Debate, Prospects, and U.S. Interests, (PDF, 16 pages), dated 19 February 2009.

Richardson has a different perspective than ours because he uses his site to follow North Korean affairs, which means that he also closely follows South Korea. Still, he offers these two quotes:

The previous taboo within the Japanese political community of discussing a nuclear weapons capability appears to have been broken, as several officials and opinion leaders have urged an open debate on the topic. Despite these factors, a strong consensus—both in Japan and among Japan watchers—remains that Japan will not pursue the nuclear option in the short-to medium term.

And:

Any eventual reunification of the Korean peninsula could further induce Japan to reconsider its nuclear stance. If the two Koreas unify while North Korea still holds nuclear weapons and the new state opts to keep a nuclear arsenal, Japan may face a different calculation.

The report was written specifically to provide background information to members of the U.S. House and Senate. There are two authors; the first is Emma Chanlett-Avery, identified as a Specialist in Asian Affairs, and the second is Mary Beth Nikitin, cited as an “Analyst in Nonproliferation”. Ms. Chanlett-Avery has written several Congressional reports on Asian issues, though it’s not clear what territory is covered by Asia. (One of her reports was on Southeast Asia.) Ms. Nikitin also has written Congressional reports on non-proliferation.

Despite turgid prose, poor organization, and one serious flaw, the report is worth reading because it provides a basic overview of the many aspects involved, including:

• Japan’s civilian nuclear power program

• The historical background of Japan’s non-nuclear stance and governmental studies for creating a nuclear deterrent.

• What Japan would need (and not need) to develop a nuclear arsenal

• The difficulties in dealing with the substantial bloc of domestic public opinion opposed to nuclear weapons

• The legal restrictions and obstacles to a nuclear program

• The growing sense of nationhood among younger people

• The possible effect on the U.S-Japan alliance, regional security, and Japan’s standing in the world

While most of the report is straightforward, here are some passages that raised my eyebrows:

Regionally, Japan “going nuclear” could set off an arms race with China, South Korea, and Taiwan.

I doubt that Taiwan would think it necessary to bulk up its military capabilities because Japan had nuclear weapons. China, yes; Japan, no.

Bilaterally, assuming that Japan made the decision without U.S. support, the move could indicate a lack of trust in the U.S. commitment to defend Japan.

The Japanese acquisition of nuclear weapons would almost certainly be due to a lack of trust in the U.S. committment to defend Japan.

An ascendant hawkish, conservative movement—some of whom openly advocate for Japan to develop an independent nuclear arsenal—has gained more traction in Japanese politics, moving from the margins to a more influential position.

Japan is as likely to start an aggressive war as shrimp are to learn how to whistle, regardless of the definition the authors choose for the word “conservative”. Therefore, the acquisition of the atomic bomb would be strictly as a deterrent, or in only the most dire threat to national security.

The description of this approach as “hawkish” in this context is curious.

…(F)ew dispute that Japan could make nuclear weapons if Tokyo were to invest the necessary financial and other resources.

“Few”? Does anyone dispute it at all?

…(I)f Japan manufactured nuclear warheads, then it would need to at the minimum perform one nuclear test—but where this could be carried out on the island nation is far from clear.

If there was a consensus on pursuing a nuclear program–a very big if–testing might–and that’s a very big might–be performed at an underground location at one of the remote islands to the south. Hatoma, for example, has a population of only 60 people that a determined government could relocate with the approval of an alarmed citizenry. There are other uninhabited islands scattered throughout the archipelago. This is very speculative, of course.

Japan’s nuclear materials and facilities are under IAEA safeguards, making a clandestine nuclear weapons program difficult to conceal.

If Japan felt threatened enough by North Korea or China to build a bomb, why would they want to conceal the program? And in the face of what such a threat would entail, why would they feel constrained by either the IAEA or the need for secrecy? I think the report would have been improved had the authors considered in greater depth the environment required to produce the events they suggest might occur.

Many observers have recognized a trend of growing nationalism in Japan, particularly among the younger generation. Some Japanese commentators have suggested that this increasing patriotism could jeopardize closer cooperation with the United States…

Subtract points for credibility due to the false equivalence of “nationalism” and “patriotism”.

Realist-minded security observers cite the danger of threatening China…

A nuclear deterrent is not a threat to China. Japanese actions in this regard would depend on Chinese behavior, and the leaders of China know it. The leaders of China also think it’s in their best interests to feed their public a different story, however. (Let’s not bring up the North Korean threat; if the Chinese were serious about stopping North Korean nuclear ambitions, Pyeongyang’s program would have ended long ago.)

Perhaps the “realist-minded security observers” might give greater consideration to the more realistic threat of Chinese nuclear weapons and ever-growing armed forces to Japanese security.

If Japan withdrew from the NPT, it would likely be subject to UN Security Council-imposed sanctions and economic and diplomatic isolation.

The only reason Japan would withdraw from the NPT would be due to a serious external threat that it was convinced the UN and the U.S., among others, were incapable of dealing with. Under that scenario, if the UN were to impose sanctions and economic and diplomatic isolation–which haven’t worked so well with Iraq, Iran, and North Korea–global security conditions would have become so perilous that Japan would probably need nuclear weapons.

Acquiring nuclear weapons could also hurt Japan’s long-term goal of permanent membership on the U.N. Security Council.

Japan isn’t going to become a permanent member until the South Korean state reaches diplomatic adulthood, which means not in the foreseeable future.

Some in Japan are nervous that if the United States develops a closer relationship with China, the gap between Tokyo’s and Washington’s security perspectives will grow and further weaken the U.S. commitment.

As well they should be.

To many security experts, the most alarming possible consequence of a Japanese decision to develop nuclear weapons would be the development of a regional arms race. The fear is based on the belief that a nuclear-armed Japan could compel South Korea to develop its own program.

It wouldn’t “compel” South Korea to develop its own program, but the current state of South Korean nationalism–not patriotism–would demand it. Just because Japan did it.

The counter-argument, made by some security experts, is that nuclear deterrence was stabilizing during the Cold War, and a similar nuclear balance could be achieved in Asia. However, most observers maintain that the risks outweigh potential stabilizing factors.

“Most observers”? Did they count the observers? Whom do they consider to be “observers”, and why? The authors tend to be vague throughout with their use of expressions such as these, despite what appears to be some lightness in the footnoted material.

Japan’s development of its own nuclear arsenal could also have (a) damaging impact on U.S. nonproliferation policy. It would be more difficult for the United States to convince non-nuclear weapon states to keep their non-nuclear status or to persuade countries such as North Korea to give up their weapons programs.

The United States and its European allies haven’t been very successful in convincing states with malevolent intent to remain non-nuclear. If it isn’t clear to the authors by now that nothing the Americans do (short of total warfare) will convince North Korea to give up its weapons programs, it never will be.

The first justification, by the way, is one cited by the Obama Administration for its sophomoric efforts to outlaw nuclear weapons. As George Jonas points out here, that is potentially more dangerous than anything a hawkish, conservative nationalist would do: “The genie is out of the bottle; good luck to anyone trying to stuff it back.”

The serious flaw of this report is that it assumes the existence of a marvelous policy control panel with hundreds of switches, and the operation in question is to turn only that switch marked “Japanese nuclear weapons” to the ON position. But that switch will not be turned on unless the current position of many other switches in the imaginary control panel also change; that much should be obvious. What, therefore, is the point of examining a single switch in isolation? One would have hoped the authors of Congressional reports were more imaginative when examining hypothetical scenarios.

The full report is here.