Thinking the Once-Unthinkable: Japan, Germany With A-Bombs

Now that Germany and Japan are major economic and political powers again, is it only a matter of time before they acquire nuclear weapons? And if they do, some scholars are asking, would it be a bad thing?

Both countries strongly disavow any desire to join the club of nuclear powers. But a few American strategic thinkers argue that a nuclear-equipped Germany and Japan could actually do the world some good.

“Nuclear weapons have helped keep the peace for 45 years,” says John J. Mearsheimer, professor of political science at the University of Chicago, who recently proposed admitting Germany to the club of nuclear powers. “The best way to prevent war between great powers is to make them secure and cautious . . . (and) nuclear weapons do that.”

Ronald A. Morse, a Japan scholar formerly at the Smithsonian Institution’s Woodrow Wilson Center, adds: “A nuclear-armed Japan could be a benefit to the United States. It would strengthen the U.S.-Japan partnership, because we’d be dealing with each other as equals. And we need at least one (nuclear power) in Asia that’s on our side.”

Not surprisingly, their arguments have not been universally popular--in Germany, Japan or the United States.

“People said we were both crazy,” Morse notes cheerfully.

But they are sticking to their guns and say they have at least exposed an issue that should be debated openly before it becomes a more serious problem.

“The Germans don’t want to hear about this,” Mearsheimer says. “A good number of Germans I’ve talked to agree that it’s only a matter of time before they go nuclear. But, they say, ‘That’s the distant future, let’s not kick up a dust storm.’ ”

Morse adds: “People in the Defense Department believe Japan is eventually going to get nukes. If the government’s assumption is that Japan will go nuclear . . , we should want to work with them and make sure it happens the right way.”

Bush Administration spokesmen say the government holds no such assumption--not officially, anyway. “But there is certainly a lot of talk about it,” one official acknowledged.

Both Germany and Japan already have the technical expertise, money and raw material to go nuclear, if they ever choose to do so, officials say. Politicians in both countries, scarred deeply by defeat in World War II, have sworn off any nuclear aspirations. Instead, both rely on the United States to provide a “nuclear umbrella” against threats from other nations with atomic weapons.

“German security is not to be found in the possession of nuclear weapons,” argues Michael Stuermer, a leading German strategic scholar.

In Japan, on the other hand, a handful of nationalists have begun arguing publicly for nuclear independence--in part because Japan’s economic and political clashes with the United States have been more intense and emotional than recent U.S.-German disputes.

Yasuo Takiyama, a former editor of the Tokyo newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun and a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945, said in a recent speech that Japan should seriously consider building its own nuclear arsenal.

“Well-informed Japanese don’t put 100% confidence in the U.S. nuclear umbrella,” he said in the speech. “We don’t want to be under U.S. tutelage any more.” Besides, he added, “the world has learned to live with a nuclear-armed United States, Russia, Britain, France, China--and perhaps North Korea.”

The arguments against adding two new nuclear powers are many. One is historical: Germany and Japan were the authors of World War II, and many Americans fear that they might some day turn into aggressive military powers again. “Historically, they’ve been aggressive because of insecurity, not because of their power,” says Mearsheimer. “I would allow them nuclear weapons to enhance their sense of security.”

Another argument is political: for decades, the United States and other countries (including Germany and Japan) have promoted nuclear non-proliferation, based on the idea that the world would be safer with fewer nuclear armies. Allowing Germany and Japan to go nuclear, officials argue, would “open the floodgates” for other countries to seek the same deadly weapons.