Subject: EEE会議（またもや日本核武装論）
Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 11:11:23 +0900
From: "kkaneko" <kkaneko@eagle.ocn.ne.jp>

各位

日本自身の核武装問題については、昨年６月の福田官房長官発言などを契機
として一時内外で話題となりましたが、最近また、北朝鮮の核兵器開発問題に
関連して米国の一部の専門家の間で関心を集めているようです。　とくに下記
にご紹介する論文（１月３日付け「ワシントン・ポスト」掲載）は、同紙の著
名コラムニストのものだけに、注意しておく価値があると思います。　小生は
ここ数日間日本の新聞報道をあまり丁寧にチェックしていませんでしたので、
既に同論文が日本で紹介済みかどうか存じませんが、ご参考までにその要点
を一口で言いますと、

「北朝鮮が核兵器開発を断念しないのは、中国が北朝鮮に対して十分圧力を
かけていないからで、中国の態度を改めさせるためには『ジャパン・カード』
を切るべきだ。つまり、今のままでは、北朝鮮の核に脅威を感ずる日本が対
抗上独自の核武装に走る惧れがある、あるいは米国が日本に核ミサイルを
供与するかもしれない、ということを思い知らせるべきだ。中国にとって核武
装化した日本は、我々にとって核武装化した北朝鮮と同じく悪夢であるは
ずだ」

というような論旨です（とくに重要なのは最後の２パラグラフ）。 北朝鮮問
題に対する米国人のイライラぶりがよく現れていると思いますが、いかがで
すか？　一方我々日本人はどう考えるべきなのか？　また、こうした動きが
日本の今後の原子力開発（とくにプルトニウム利用計画）にどう跳ね返って
くるのか？

この記事を読んでのご感想やコメント、関連情報等をお寄せください。
匿名（ハンドルネーム）でも結構です。

金子熊夫

***********************************
　　
The Japan Card

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, January 3, 2003; Page A19

When the secretary of state goes on five Sunday morning talk shows to
deny that something is a crisis, it is a crisis. The administration
has been playing down the gravity of North Korea's nuclear breakout,
and for good reason. For now, there is little the administration can
do. No point, therefore, in advertising our helplessness.

But there is no overestimating the seriousness of the problem. If we
did not have so many of our military assets tied up in the Persian
Gulf, we would today have carriers off the coast of Korea and be
mobilizing reinforcements for our garrison there.

North Korea is about to go from a rogue state that may have one or two
nuclear bombs hidden somewhere to one that is in the nuclear
manufacturing business. And North Korea sells everything it gets its
hands on.

This is serious stuff. And the clock is ticking. We have no idea how
far along the North Koreans are on their uranium enrichment program.
But we know that when they fire up their plutonium reprocessing plant,
they will be months away from creating a real nuclear arsenal.

The problem is that we have few cards to play. Militarily we are not
even in position to bluff. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was
duty-bound to affirm America's capacity to fight two wars at once.
Unfortunately, that capacity went by the boards at least a decade ago,
and the North Koreans know it. It is precisely because they know it
that they are using this window of opportunity, this moment of Iraqi
distraction, to brazenly go nuclear.

Moreover, even if we were not preoccupied in Iraq, we might find
ourselves self-deterred from doing anything militarily against North
Korea. Yes, we could bomb the nuclear processing plant in Yongbyon.
Problem is, that would not destroy Pyongyang's entire capacity for
producing nuclear weapons, the way the 1981 Israeli attack on the
Osirak reactor destroyed Iraq's.

And given North Korea's propensity for using special operations,
infiltration and sleeper agents (techniques it has used with success
against South Korea), we have to imagine that it might retaliate with
a smuggled nuclear weapon against American facilities or perhaps even
against the American homeland. It might be suicidal. It is improbable.
It is not impossible. That alone might deter us from a preemptive
attack on Yongbyon.

But even if nukes were not a consideration, we would be deterred by
North Korea's conventional military capacity. Unlike Iraq, it has a
serious army, a million strong and possessing thousands of artillery
tubes, many hidden in caves, many that can reach -- and reduce --
Seoul.

In other words, North Korea may already have passed the threshold to
invulnerability from American attack. So, the administration has
chosen a strategy of economic and diplomatic isolation. The idea is to
squeeze the North Korean regime to the point where it can no longer
function.

That could be done. China supplies nearly all of North Korea's energy
and 40 percent of its foodstuffs. South Korea has significant
investments in North Korea. International organizations provide a huge
amount of food aid. Moreover, North Korea has only a few major
harbors. They could be blockaded. If China and South Korea were to cut
off North Korea, it could not survive.

The problem with this scenario is that South Korea and China do not
want to play ball. They fear the chaos that might ensue. The American
containment strategy was already falling apart on Day One, when both
the South Korean president and the president-elect criticized it.

The Chinese have been even more recalcitrant. They show no inclination
to deny North Korea what it needs to survive. Even more ominously,
Bill Gertz of the Washington Times reports that the Chinese have just
shipped 20 tons of highly specialized chemicals used in extracting
plutonium from spent reactor fuel.

What to do when your hand is so poor? Play the trump. We do have one,
but we dare not speak its name: a nuclear Japan. Japan cannot long
tolerate a nuclear-armed North Korea. Having once lobbed a missile
over Japan, North Korea could easily hit any city in Japan with a
nuclear-tipped weapon. Japan does not want to live under that threat.

We should go to the Chinese and tell them plainly that if they do not
join us in squeezing North Korea and thus stopping its march to go
nuclear, we will endorse any Japanese attempt to create a nuclear
deterrent of its own. Even better, we would sympathetically regard any
request by Japan to acquire American nuclear missiles as an immediate
and interim deterrent. If our nightmare is a nuclear North Korea,
China's is a nuclear Japan. It's time to share the nightmares.

c 2003 The Washington Post Company