Subject: EEE会議（Re:　日本核武装論）
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 08:49:57 +0900
From: "kkaneko" <kkaneko@eagle.ocn.ne.jp>

各位

この問題に関する海外の議論の続きです。余り新味はありませんが、
彼等が何を考えているかを知る上で、ある程度参考にはなります。
金子熊夫
*******************************

The idea that any MIT student can make a nuclear weapon in his or
her dormitory room overlooks the enormous technical difficulty of
engineering and producing an actual device. Several of today's
nuclear countries made devices that failed at first and second
attempts. India, for example, with all the talent and resources that a
major country could muster, required several trials.

The basic idea may be circulating, but just putting together the
components, assuming that the fissile material is at hand, is not a
job for a garage mechanic. On the other hand, the technology for a
1945-era bomb is now more than fifty years old (by definition) so the
technology is not as state-of-the-art as it once was.

Arthur Alexander
********************************

I have a problem with this discussion, namely that "Japan"
doesn't "decide", and "Japan" doesn't "pledge". The Japanese
government does the deciding and pledging, and that happens as a
political process. And just as the US abrogated its non-proliferation
treaties soon after GWB took office, and just as North Korea has
abrogated its agreements/pledges, any agreements/pledges any
government makes are subject to change without notice.

For things as extreme as possessing nuclear weapons, it seems to
me unlikely that the Japanese public would put up with it. In the
polls I've seen, the public strongly supports article 9 and strongly
opposes nuclear weapons. This leads to a high-stress dynamic
where the rather right wing leading party and government would like
to do more along those lines than the populace is willing to accept,
so you have the continuing sleazy moves at undermining Article 9
such as the government jumping at every chance to help out the UN
or the US.

> Disturbingly, the third principle has been broken many times. This
>does raise doubts as to whether the other principles would be
>retained if the US nuclear umbrella were to disappear from this
>region.

David J. Littleboy
*********************************

>The idea that any MIT student can make a nuclear weapon in his/
>her dormitory room overlooks the enormous technical difficulty of
>engineering and producing an actual device. Several of today's
>nuclear countries made devices that failed at first and second

Let me add to Mr. Alexander's comments one or two details from an
engineering point of view. What most people do not grasp about
manufacturing a nuclear weapon is the large amount of special
metals and special machine technology required. This Japan has,
and is one of the very few countries that does. The fact that
Pakistan and India have been able to develop this technology,
mainly indegeously, should be cause for worry.

To give a typical example, in today's on line issue of New Scientist
was a story that Iraqis were disputing that 81 mm tubes of special
alloys imported from an unnamed European nation were destined
for components for centrifuges to separate nuclear fuel. They
claimed that they were launching tubes for short range rockets.

What the Iraqi story is has no relevance to this forum, but the point
is, that few nations even have the technology to build even a
centrifuge to separate nuclear fuel, and fewer nations yet have the
ability to make the actual components and metal technology that is
required. Japan has this technology, but it is not readily available,
and still remains pretty much a monoploy of highly advanced
industrialized nations such as Japan.

W.T.Stonehill