An East Asian Nuclear Cascade?

Status, Power, and a Japanese Bomb

A few years ago, my husband and co-author, Daryl and I were once chatting with an editor and we pitched him an idea we had for an essay about South Korean nuclear weapons.

“You mean North Korean nuclear weapons, right?” he asked.

Nope: South Korean nuclear weapons.

These days, the debate about the Republic of Korea (ROK)’s possible nuclear weapons acquisition has become more well-known than when we startled that editor. Poll data show that many South Koreans support an independent arsenal (particularly in the case of a Trump victory this November) and the idea is gaining support among conservatives. The ROK’s new defense minister, Kim Yong-hyun, recently commented that he was “open” to considering nuclear acquisition as an option for addressing South Korea’s vulnerability to North Korea’s growing arsenal and increasingly dangerous nuclear doctrine.

I’m just back from a conference in South Korea on this topic. Daryl and I have written several pieces on South Korea’s nuclear options (see here and here), so I won’t revisit those arguments now. Rather, I was interested in a recurring theme that I heard discussed at the conference related to the regional effects of a South Korean nuclear arsenal.

Specifically: how would Japan react? Would Japan go nuclear too?

NUCLEAR CASCADES

Scholars talk about how one country’s acquisition of nuclear weapons may have a cascade effect. In the logic of the security dilemma, a country’s decision to acquire a nuclear arsenal might lead a neighbor or rival to feel vulnerable, thus spurring it to follow suit.

Previous cases suggest some evidence for nuclear cascades. India’s 1974 nuclear test is often seen as an answer to China’s 1964 nuclear weapons test, which raised Indian threat perception. Subsequently, Pakistan embarked on its own nuclear weapons program, eventually conducting its first nuclear tests in 1998 in response to Indian tests earlier that year.

Today observers anticipate other nuclear cascades; many observers fear this occurring in the Middle East in response to an Iranian bomb. “Saudi Arabia is widely considered to be the most likely regional state to pursue the nuclear option,” write Robert Einhorn and Richard Nephew, “an impression reinforced by occasional remarks by prominent Saudis that the Kingdom will match whatever nuclear capability Iran attains.” Scholars also worry that Turkey, Egypt and perhaps others would be go nuclear as well. (By the way, Barry Posen explains why he’s skeptical.)

And in Asia, as noted, many people wonder whether a South Korean nuclear arsenal would lead Tokyo to go nuclear as well.

STATUS COMPETITION BETWEEN JAPAN AND ROK?

In discussions in Seoul, I often heard an argument related to status raised regarding Japan’s likely reaction. To be clear, this was not an obscure view; it was repeatedly expressed, eliciting a ripple of head-nodding around the room. The claim is, Japan would find it intolerable to be in a situation in which South Korea had nuclear weapons and Japan did not; so South Korean nuclear acquisition would cause a cascade to Japan.

Proponents of this argument explained to me that Japan thinks it’s better than South Korea – views it as inferior – so South Korea owning nuclear weapons while Japan did not would be unacceptable to Tokyo. This claim made me think of the argument by MIT scholar Roger Petersen, who wrote in his book Understanding Ethnic Violence (2012) that the emotion of resentment is a powerful motivator, and groups resent a situation in which they feel vulnerable to a group that they believe has no right to occupy a position of superior status. So in this view, if South Korea made the decision to go nuclear, a resentful Japan would follow suit in order to maintain its status.

As an East Asia scholar who got her start as a Japan-hand, I was fascinated by this argument: because it was utterly at odds with my understanding of the country and its views about nuclear weapons.

First, if Japanese people feel superior to South Koreans, they sure don’t share that with me. When I talk with Japanese colleagues about South Korea, they speak about it with respect: it’s a member of the liberal club of nations to which Japan belongs. Japanese people clearly appreciate and admire South Korea’s economic and science & technological achievements. And of course, Japanese people love South Korea’s awesome K-pop, skin care products, and TV dramas. (As for South Korea’s sublime cuisine, though—I don’t think the Japanese appreciate the garlic as much as I do.)

Sure, Japan and South Korea squabble – in a phenomenon known as “apology fatigue,” many Japanese believe that Japan has offered significant contrition to South Korea for its past atrocities so are weary of South Koreans (particularly progressives) continually raising the topic and demanding further apologies. Many Japanese people freely express such frustrations about South Korea to me. But superiority? I don’t pick that up, frankly. One might say the Japanese obscure their true views when talking with Americans – but that leaves us with an unfalsifiable claim. (“Trust me: I know what they’re really thinking.”)

POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE STATUS?

Two other assumptions in that status argument are worth noting and challenging. First, the claim that status-seeking Japan would go nuclear in response to South Korean nuclear weapons rests on the assumption that a state’s acquisition of nuclear weapons enhances its status. But there’s a competing theory about nuclear weapons and status, which is that among states in the liberal global community, a country that acquires nuclear weapons, by violating a strong norm of nuclear non-proliferation, doesn’t elevate its status but rather makes itself a pariah.

Many South Koreans opposed to nuclear acquisition express this argument, warning that currently South Korea enjoys the status of responsible member of the liberal global community—compared to North Korea, a desperately poor rogue state with an illegal nuclear arsenal. By acquiring nuclear weapons, doubters warn, the ROK would tarnish its high status and join Pyongyang in the global penalty box. Such skeptics often point to the risk that Seoul will be hit with retaliatory economic sanctions by the global community. In this view, then, nuclear weapons reduce rather than enhance a country’s status.

What do we think are Japan’s views about the status effects of nuclear weapons? Importantly, many signs suggest that the Japanese view nuclear acquisition negatively rather than positively.

ANTI-NUCLEAR NORMS IN JAPAN

Within Japanese society exists strong opposition to nuclear weapons. Japan is the only country in the world to have experienced devastating nuclear bombardment—twice. Other incidents (the 1954 radiation poisoning of Japanese fishermen from U.S. nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands, and more recently the Fukushima disaster of 2011) contributed to a strong nuclear aversion.

Memories and mourning of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been instituted in annual ceremonies on the days of the bombings. Japan is home to a large anti-nuclear movement and Japanese people are active in transnational peace movements advocating the eradication of nuclear weapons, or “global zero.” Among the Japanese public, then, an anti-nuclear norm is very powerful: many people see nuclear weapons as a blight, and view Japan —because of its historical experience —as having special status as a leader in the global effort to eliminate them. 

To be clear, scholars have overstated the constraining effects of Japanese anti-militarist norms; as I have written, anti-militarist norms did not prevent Japan from building up prodigious conventional military capabilities, and from reacting to adverse shifts in its national security environment. I suspect that the loss of the U.S. nuclear umbrella would eventually – given the regional threats Japan faces – lead Tokyo to go nuclear. But the expectation by many South Koreans that “of course” South Korean nuclear weapons would lead Japan to go nuclear ignores a rival theory of status, and ignores — in striking comparison to South Korea — strong anti-nuclear sentiment among the Japanese public.

THE LAST STRAW?

Apart from status concerns, there’s another argument for why South Korean nuclear weapons wouldn’t necessarily lead Japan to go nuclear. Hundreds (thousands?) of Soviet missiles pointed at Japan during the Cold War did not prompt Tokyo to go nuclear. China tested its first nuclear weapon in 1964—and Japan did not go nuclear. North Korea acquired nuclear weapons and has steadily increased the destructiveness of its arsenal—and Japan has not gone nuclear. But acquisition of nuclear weapons by South Korea —a security partner, a major economic partner, a liberal democracy, with which Japan shares a U.S. ally — is expected to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back?

So regardless of status, there are good reasons to doubt the assertion I heard at the conference that South Korean nuclear weapons would cascade to Japan. The U.S. nuclear umbrella has to this point reassured Tokyo—and it’s hard to make the case that Tokyo would react to South Korean acquisition so differently than it’s reacted (or to be more accurate, not reacted) to these previous cases. Toss in a half-century of powerful anti-nuclear and anti-militarist norms and the case for a South Korean nuclear cascade to Japan looks pretty weak.