Subject: ＥＥＥ会議（Ｒｅ：　日本核武装論）
Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 15:23:02 +0900
From: "金子　熊夫" <kkaneko@eagle.ocn.ne.jp>

各位

年初から当ＥＥＥ会議で盛んに議論されてきた「日本核武装論」は、もうこの辺で一
区切りと
思っていたのですが、最近、The Asia Times（香港で発行）が次のような論文を載せ
ていること
が分かりましたので、参考までにご紹介します。　この論文では、京大の中西輝政教
授が
「日本核武装宣言」を提唱していること（彼は以前からそれらしきことを言っていま
すが）、
原子炉級プルトニウムでも核爆弾が比較的簡単にできること、大阪のレーザー工学研
究施設
（？）は米国のローレンス・リバーモア研究所みたいなもので、そこのレーザー濃縮
法でやれば
容易に兵器級の高濃縮ウランができること、などを述べています。　論文全文は、次
のサイトで。　
コメントや関連情報のある方はどうぞ。　

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/EA14Dh01.html


金子熊夫

*******************************************

> > Japan could 'go nuclear' in months
> > By Marc Erikson
> >
> > On January 3, Washington Post syndicated columnist Charles
> > Krauthammer wrote, "We [the US] should go to the Chinese and tell them
> > plainly that if they do not join us in squeezing North Korea ... 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."
> >
> > It's not clear how shared nightmares would make for a safer Northeast
> > Asia. But there can be no doubt that if Japan saw fit to become
> > a nuclear power, it could do so in less than a year's time - without
> > American help and borrowed nukes and to China's certain chagrin.
> >
> > There is also a fast-growing body of opinion in Japan saying that that's
> > precisely what the country should do. Latest on that is a December
> > "Nuclear Declaration for Japan" by influential Kyoto University
> > international-
> > relations Professor Terumasa Nakanishi (co-author with Fred Charles
> > Ikle,
> > undersecretary of defense for policy in the Ronald Reagan
> > administration, of
> > a widely noted Foreign Affairs article "Japan's grand strategy") and
> > literary
> > critic Kazuya Fukuda calling on the Japanese not to cave in to the North
> > Korean nuclear threat: "The best way for Japan to avoid being the target
> > of
> > North Korean nuclear missiles is for the prime minister to declare
> > without
> > delay that Japan will arm itself with nuclear weapons." They also want
> > Japan to get on with construction of a missile-defense system, post
> > haste.
> >
> > Recall, too, that in April last year Liberal Party president Ichiro
> > Ozawa
> > created a massive furor claiming (rightly, by the way) that Japan - to
> > deter
> > any China threat - could easily produce "thousands of nuclear warheads"
> > from plutonium extracted from the spent fuel of its more than 50
> > commercial nuclear reactors. In late May, chief cabinet secretary Yasuo
> > Fukuda followed suit and told a news conference (right again) that
> > Japan's
> > war-renouncing constitution does not prevent it from possessing nuclear
> > weapons.
> >
> > A few years back, such declarations by noted academics or statements by
> > high-ranking politicians and government officials would have been
> > unthinkable. Quite evidently, they no longer are.
> >
> > Significant political hurdles remain. But those could come down in a
> > hurry
> > should North Korea in its present escalation mood launch another
> > ballistic
> > missile across Japan's bow as in August 1998. As for technical
> > feasibility,
> > Japan for two decades or more has had the scientific and technological
> > capability and the tools and materials to make nuclear bombs in short
> > order
> > - and by now not just crude but highly sophisticated ones. Asked how
> > long
> > it would take, a Japanese defense official offered the -
> > tongue-in-cheek? -
> > detail of 183 days.
> >
> > The North Korean nuclear (or other WMD)-tipped ballistic missiles to
> > Japan
> > is real enough. While it was the 1998 Taepodong 1 launch that alerted
> > the
> > Japanese public to the danger, North Korea at the time and now had about
> > 100 Nodong 1 missiles deployed and ready whose range of about 1,200
> > kilometers (perhaps up to 1,500km) covers most of Japan. As real as this
> > threat is Japan's ability of drawing even and then quickly ahead in any
> > nuclear missile arms race. It has the missiles; it has the fissile
> > materials.
> >
> > According to figures published annually by the Japan Atomic Energy
> > Commission, at the end of 2001 the country owned 38 tons of separated
> > reactor-grade plutonium (RGPu) - about six tons stored in Japan, the
> > remainder in reprocessing plants in France and the United Kingdom. The
> > amount stored at home increased by 400 kilograms during the year from
> > reprocessing at the Tokai facility of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Development
> > Institute. This percentage increase will grow rapidly when a larger
> > commercial-size reprocessing plant in Rokkasho comes on line in 2005.
> > But who needs it? Six tons is enough for anywhere from 400-800 warheads.
> >
> >
> > There have been claims, including by Japanese officials anxious to deny
> > any weapons-making purpose, that RGPu could not be used for weapons
> > production. That's utter nonsense. According to the latest US Department
> > of Energy guidance on the subject, "The degree to which the obstacles to
> > the use of RGPu can be overcome depends on the sophistication of the
> > state or group attempting to produce a nuclear weapon. At the lowest
> > level
> > of sophistication ... could build a weapon from RGPu that would give an
> > assured, reliable yield of one or a few kilotons, and a probable yield
> > much
> > greater than that ... At the other end of the [sophistication] spectrum,
> > [states], using modern designs, could produce weapons from RGPu ...
> > comparable to weapons made from WGPu (weapons-grade plutonium)."
> >
> > Japan decidedly is at or near the higher end of the sophistication
> > spectrum.
> > Moreover, it could easily upgrade RGPu to WGPu, produce weapons-grade
> > uranium from low-enriched uranium (WGU) by laser separation, or just
> > produce WGU in its commercial centrifuge plant. Beyond that, at its
> > Osaka
> > Laser Engineering Laboratory, Japan has one of the world's largest, most
> > powerful lasers for use in inertial confinement (or laser) fusion
> > experiments.
> > Weapons testing could be done there as it is in a comparable facility to
> > the
> > United States' Lawrence Livermore lab. Indeed, not only could fission-
> > weapons designs be tested on a small scale, the same goes for much
> > more sophisticated and high-yield hydrogen (thermonuclear fusion)
> > weapons.
> >
> > Technically, Japan is ready. Politically, North Korea may push it over
> > the brink.
> >