There is no way to know, but Japan has the materials and know-how to make them. They are too pragmatic not to have them, IMO.
I am being absolutely serious and trying to make a point when I say this; you don’t know anything about nuclear weapons to say something that preposterous.
Japan does not have nuclear weapons.
-
If they did, it would be stupid to hide it. The purpose of nuclear weapons is to serve as a deterrent, and so your enemy must at least strongly suspect you possess them.
-
Hiding a nuclear weapons program is incredibly hard, and in a free country like Japan nearly impossible.
-
Any Japanese politician discovered to have authorized such a thing, in violation of Japanese law, international law, decency, and sanity, would spend the rest of his life in prison, assuming the mob didn’t hang him first.
-
Nuclear weapons are very, very expensive and a country would build them only for a good reason. Japan has no such reason. A nuclear attack on Japan would inevitably provoke a ferocious counterattack by the United States.
The idea is laughably absurd.
- There have been no signs of Godzilla awakening .
You mean like Israel, India or Pakistan did?
Maybe you are right. The Japanese would never behave irrationally. They would never want to have their own defensive weapons. Why, its not like I am arguing that they would attack the USA or anything.
Japan is effectively a one party state. They are in the process of modernizing their Constitution to be more proactive. They face aggressive neighbors like China and North Korea. The Japanese government would almost be negligent not to have a secret nuclear program. Admittedly, I have no evidence for this.
- It doesn’t matter because any nuclear launch decision would be tied up in a 6-week committee meeting
Or any counter to RickJay’s argument, it seems. It’s hard to see how a secret nuclear weapons capability would improve Japan’s security. Even if they could keep it secret, why would they? If they concluded that they had to keep it secret, why bother with the programme at all?
AIUI, Trump didn’t actually say Japan should get nukes, but that Japan would or might if the US were weak.
To be fair, in the Trump era, Japan couldn’t be sure of such a thing.
But yes, Japan has no clandestine nuclear arsenal today.
He said a lot more than that.
It is a known fact those countries have nuclear weapons, which is, of course, exactly the point. Even Israel, which doesn’t publicly acknowledge their possession of a nuclear arsenal, does so with a really big wink; their stance is “we are not admitting we broke the non-proliferation treaty, but, yeah, we’ve got 'em.” Israel also publicly acknowledges their possession of delivery systems that really only serve the purpose of delivering nuclear weapons, such as the Jericho systems.
India and Pakistan proudly admin they broke the NNPT. Other people knowing about your nukes is the main reason you have nukes.
He is right that both had nukes for years before declaring in 1998. However, the fact both had nukes even before May 1998 was widely believed and like Israel both acknowledged (before 1998) the development of a weapon systems and infrastructure which really had no other use.
How can they break a treaty they never signed :dubious:
Nitpick: Israel never signed the NNPT, either.
Suppose Nato countries increase military spending. Where do they spend that money?
Answer: Mostly they buy from US arms manufacturers. So it’s very good for the profits of the military-industrial complex. Nobody else benefits.
There is already an excess of armaments and nuclear weapons in the world.
For starters, you need to realize that the “total ships” category doesn’t necessarily mean much. Sometimes it’s better to look at the “combat ships” category. The US 6th Fleet has 4 destroyers. If the 6th Fleet were an independent navy, it would tie for 9th place in the world for numbers of destroyers. Furthermore, US destroyers tend to be more advanced and more powerful than most other countries’.
The 6th Fleet accounts (by the numbers) for 16% of NATO’s European destroyer strength.
All the following information is from http://www.globalfirepower.com/
Destroyers:
“The Destroyer ship type is an advanced, multi-role surface vessel outfitted with an array of sensory equipment and weaponry to counter threats from the air, on the surface and under the surface. Destroyers are designed with speed as a key quality and can be called to operate independently of the main fleet (when hunting enemy targets) or in support of the main fleet. As such, Destroyers are given offensive and defensive systems to suit a given situation. Due to their rather expensive procurement and operating costs, only a select few navies operate destroyer-type vessels in any useful numbers.”
USA–62
Spain–0
Italy–4
Germany–0
Portugal–0
Frigates:
“The Frigate ship type is a multi-role, general purpose ocean-going vessel utilized for fleet surface ship protection against enemy surface combatants or incoming aerial threats. Frigates are outfitted with advanced sonar, sensory and tracking systems that allow her crew to hunt down enemy submarines. Nearly all notable naval powers make use of the multi-role frigate in their inventory.”
USA–6
Spain–11
Italy–13
Germany–10
Portugal–5
Corvettes:
“The Corvette vessel type was born during the “Age of Sail”. Modern Corvettes are typically dimensionally smaller than Frigates and larger than Coastal Patrol Craft though the differences between Frigates and Corvettes begins to lessen when some navies consider certain vessels Corvettes when they could technically be described as Frigates. Corvettes supply a balanced mix of firepower, ocean-going capabilities and rotary-wing support while presenting reasonable economic benefits. Not every major naval power emphasizes the Corvette as part of its surface fleet - though they are consistently found in numerically smaller navies of the world.”
USA–0
Spain–0
Italy–5
Germany–5
Portugal–7
Patrol Craft
“Patrol Boats are called upon to defend offshore waters from enemy incursion. During peacetime, this may include interception of illegal drugs while, during wartime, this would include defense of critical waterways and offshore positions that threaten shipping lanes. For the purposes of the GFP ranking, Patrol Craft include various weight classes such as coastal/deep water and missile/torpedo boats.”
USA–13
Spain–23
Italy–10
Germany–4
Portugal–5
Smaller nations tend to have porportionately more small craft, such as patrol boats. For example, Norway has 62 ships total, 26 of which are patrol boats.
I realize that - I was not the one who offered European naval assets as a baseline to measure European nations’ commitment to their own defense and NATO. Since the Russian fleet is a fraction of the size the Soviet fleet was and does not deploy or conduct exercises nearly as much as the Soviet fleet did, measuring either the fleet size or the composition of European fleets is a poor way of assessing their commitment to NATO. It has only been relatively recent that Russian submarines have become more active and more aggressive, particularly for Russia’s neighbors like Norway and Sweden.
The much bigger threat to Europe from Russia is from its air force and army, and Europeans are somewhat more capable in these respects than their navy, though they have cut back severely following the Great Recession in 2008/2009. But the bottomline is that not all European countries, particularly in Western Europe, are directly threatened by Russia given their location and their military budgets tend to reflect that.
The recent renewed interest in creating EU military forces and consolidating European units is a good one since it has the potential to reduce overly redundant capabilities and compensate for existing deficiencies and weaknesses.
AIUI, most such military spending would go towards training, salary, benefits, logistics, maintenance, or military acquisition from domestic (non-US) suppliers. Only a relatively modest fraction would go towards American arms, and in fact plenty of military equipment in NATO inventories is of a non-US nature - i.e., JAS-39 Gripens, Eurofighters, Meteor missiles, etc.
The difference between “Destroyer” and “Frigate” is rather unclear. The implication here is that destroyers are, what? Faster? Not really anymore, though. Have anti-air capabilities? All modern frigates do.
And in fact, if you look up various examples, the difference is increasingly meaningless. Once upon a time a frigate was genuinely a different ship; it’s really not anymore. The terms “Destroyer” and “Frigate” seem to be applied to new classes of vessels based on… er, it’s hard to say, really.
To say nothing of the apparent non-existence of cruisers in the world of GlobalFirepower.com. That the site weighs heavily on available manpower ("MANPOWER - Going beyond military equipment totals and perceived fighting strength is the actual manpower that drives a given military. Wars of attrition favor those with more.), scores nations military power by their petroleum production (“RESOURCES (PETROLEUM) - Despite the advances made in battlefield technology, oil remains the lifeblood of any fighting force and supporting economy.”), and considers a nations labor pool to equate to military logistical capability (“LOGISTICAL - War is as much a battle of logistics - moving man and machine from / to points all over - as it is direct combat. Labor Force adds to available wartime industry strength.”) speaks to how little the site understands military power. It pretty much says its pulling numbers out of its ass:
Just two years after Russia sent troops into Ukraina and took over Crimea and someone actually wonders if its necessary to keep a strong ground force footprint in Europe? :dubious:
How much money is actually necessary to run a NATO that keeps a reasonable military power? Should probably know that before we can decide who pays a fair share of it. After all, it is possible there is some military overspending out there.
Also, if the goal is a reasonable military power rather than selling more stuff to keep someones military-industrial complex going, how much of that could be achieved more easily by better coordination and integration in Europe?