Austin Bay: Watching Ukraine, Japan and South Korea Consider Nuclear Weapons

Russia’s invasion and occupation of Ukraine has caused profound changes in Europe and Asia’s defense policies. A prime example of this is the bids by Finland and Sweden to join NATO.

South Korea, Japan and Russia have begun to seriously think about nuclear weapons acquisitions after the Russian president Vladimir Putin threatened to attack their enemies in East Asia.

Background: It is not unusual for South Korea and Japan to acquire nuclear weapons. Both countries are highly skilled and have high-tech infrastructures and top-10 GDPs. Leaders in Japan have speculated about Japanese nuclear weapons. In 1957 then-Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi told the Diet that he thought the pacifist postwar Constitution did not explicitly forbid Japan from having nuclear weapons — if they were very small.

South Korea does not suffer from pacifism. In 2006, North Korea’s Kim regime threatened to launch a nuclear war. The South Koreans were informed and quietly assured that Seoul could build a nuclear weapon in a matter of days. The South Korean nuclear weapon would not only explode but also send a missile to Little Rocket Man’s bunker.

Ukraine has had combat drones. Kim Jong-un may have wanted to make a drone declaration. In late December several North Korean drones penetrated South Korean territory. Yoon Suk-yeol, the South Korean president, stated that South Korea might deploy nuclear weapons to forcefully invade South Korea’s territory on December 31. “or possess its own nuclear capabilities” If North Korean threats escalate.

The drone swarm represented intensification.

Following Russia’s total invasion of Ukraine in March 2022 Shinzo Abe, the ex-prime minister of Japan, cried out that Japan must immediately consider nuclear weapons. Abe desired an open, unapologetic, and real-world discussion.

Fumio Kishida, the current prime minister, rejected Abe’s suggestion and called it “a joke.” “unacceptable.” Kishida hails from Hiroshima (a WWII nuclear target). This fact is what shaped his absolute non-proliferation position.

But, the Ukraine war’s global issue has been present from Russia’s attack on Crimea in February 2014 to today’s nuclear weapons.

Russia invaded Crimea in violation of a multilateral diplomatic accord guaranteeing Ukraine’s territorial integrity. It was the Budapest Memorandum of 1995. In exchange for security guarantees, the agreement allowed Ukraine to trade nuclear weapons. Ukraine, with some 5,000 nuclear weapons, was the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world at the time.

It was supported by Britain and the United States. Bill Clinton signed it. This memorandum was part a larger post-Cold War diplomatic structure that supported disarmament and economic development as well as democratic development in former Iron Curtain nations.

Britain, Ukraine, and the Clinton administration thought they had solved ex-Soviet nuclear weapons and Ukrainian territorial sovereignty.

They didn’t. Now Ukraine faces invasion and nuclear blackmail.

South Korea is able to identify itself even though it does not have nuclear weapons. Kim Jong-un’s one and only international fame is provided by nukes. His reach extends far beyond Seoul thanks to a ballistic weapon.

Kim’s nuclear extortion scheme: “Pay me off and guarantee the survival of my impoverished, criminal regime, or I’ll nuke you and cost all of you more in lives and money than the bribes and media kowtow I demand.”

The nuclear extortion drama in North Korea, which includes repeated threats of nuclear attack and demands for food, financial aid and other assistance, has exhausted South Korean patience and Japan’s patience.

Russia’s nuclear threat to Ukraine is a clear example of what happens when an extortion racket becomes a war.

Defense analysts have been wondering for years how long it would take South Korea and Japan to produce a nuclear weapon. Once, the Federation of American Scientists suggested Japan “could possibly produce functional nuclear weapons in as little as a year’s time.” In 2014, NBC reported that Japan had according to anonymous sources been displaced “the material and the means to produce nuclear weapons within six months.”

South Korean sources offer this estimate with a nod of the head and a wink “it won’t take long.”

A nuclear-armed Japan would be a nightmare for China. China is also aware that South Korean and Japanese nuclear weapons could work.

Xi Jinping, China’s communist dictator can thank Vlad Putin, for allowing two wealthy Asian democracies in the region to become nuclear powerhouses.

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