The other day, regular Vladtepes Blog contributor, Richard, commented about Trump’s unprecedented policy regarding North Korea with the following reply:

“President Trump knows this, this is shown in his statements that maybe South Korea and Japan should build nuclear weapons.”

Feeling inspired, I have converted my original response into the following essay:

Finally, someone at a high level is willing to tell the ugly truth, instead of the usual beautiful lies. At the very least, this is a goad being prodded into China’s ribs about North Korea. If Japan and South Korea both go nuclear, they will no longer have to rely upon America’s protective umbrella or worry about how Democrats like Clinton and 0bama fold it up whenever they get their hands on the tiller.

A nuclear-armed South Korea would send Beijing the unmistakable message that they can unilaterally impose harsh retribution should Communist China continue to prop up the NORKs (i.e., North Koreans). This also is extremely healthy for the USA because we would not have to be dragged into a nuclear conflict on the Korean peninsula if Psycho Fat Boy Kim causes things to go all pear-shaped (as the following chart details).

Similarly armed, Japan would then have its own lever to counter NORK aggression. Being able to retaliate against Red China for how it has supported Pyongyang (and its nuclear program) for all these years would definitely throw a spanner into Beijing’s gears. There is serious speculation that Japan already has several nuclear devices in an unassembled state (so as not to violate treaty agreements) which could be deployed in a few short weeks. From: “Japan Has Nuclear ‘Bomb in the Basement,’ and China Isn’t Happy“.

“Japan already has the technical capability, and has had it since the 1980s,” said the official. He said that once Japan had more than five to 10 kilograms of plutonium, the amount needed for a single weapon, it had “already gone over the threshold,” and had a nuclear deterrent.

Japan now has 9 tons of plutonium stockpiled at several locations in Japan and another 35 tons stored in France and the U.K. The material is enough to create 5,000 nuclear bombs. The country also has 1.2 tons of enriched uranium.

Technical ability doesn’t equate to a bomb, but experts suggest getting from raw plutonium to a nuclear weapon could take as little as six months after the political decision to go forward. A senior U.S. official familiar with Japanese nuclear strategy said the six-month figure for a country with Japan’s advanced nuclear engineering infrastructure was not out of the ballpark, and no expert gave an estimate of more than two years.

After all, the Japanese have been operating nuclear reactors for decades and the extraction or enrichment processes needed to make use of reactor byproducts are well within Tokyo’s technological abilities. For more information, please see: “Japan Producing Huge, Lightly Guarded Stockpile of Plutonium“.

Also, with South Korea and Japan becoming nuclear armed, they would pose a unique threat to Communist China in that, using cruise missiles (instead of SRBMs or IRBMs), either country could deploy short-range, flat trajectory tracks that are, not just extremely difficult to intercept, but have very short arrival times. It is a fairly safe bet that neither the Chinese nor the NORKs have overcome the formidable engineering challenges posed by warhead miniaturization that is necessary to reliably integrate nuclear devices with cruise missiles. From: “China’s Nuclear Subs Are Ready to Terrorize the Sea“.

“The Chinese air force’s H-6 bombers first dropped atomic bombs back in the 1970s—and modern versions of the bombers can fire cruise missiles that are compatible with nuclear warheads.

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