Japan Should Review Nuclear Arms Taboo, Retired Generals Say

Tokyo's vow never to have such weapons is being challenged by regional turbulence

- Walter Sim

TOKYO — The volatile security environment facing Japan today has led its military experts to moot an idea that has long been taboo: that its Three Non-Nuclear Principles dating to 1967 should be reviewed.

As the world's only country to have suffered atomic bombings, Japan vowed to never possess, produce and permit the introduction of nuclear weapons to its territory.

But retired Self-Defence Forces (SDF) officers have lamented an unofficial fourth principle — never discuss — as they fret over the state of Japan's military preparedness with the country being surrounded by the nuclear-armed states of China, Russia and North Korea, and with the region becoming more turbulent.

Japan enjoys the protection of the nuclear umbrella of its security ally the United States. Yet in what has been described as "perverse logic", the third principle of never permitting nuclear arms on Japanese territory bars the US from bringing such weapons onto Japanese soil and its nuclear-equipped vessels and bombers from traveling through its waters and airspace.

These retired officers said that Japan risks hamstringing itself with its antiquated policies. South Korea, another regional US ally, in 2023 resumed allowing American nuclear submarines to make port calls, having previously halted permission in 1981. The most recent call was in February, when the USS Alexandria docked in Busan.

"Both the Japanese government and its people have stopped thinking about the operational aspects of how Japan itself can make the US nuclear umbrella effective," according to a June 2 report released by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation think-tank.

Its contributors included retired general Koji Yamazaki, a former Chief of Staff of the Joint Staff of the Japanese military.