National security advisers from the United States and Korea, as well as the head of the Japanese National Security Secretariat, Takeo Akibe, met in Seoul.
Photo: REUTERS
After surrendering in World War II, Japan adopted a pacifist constitution, one of whose articles prohibits the country from having its own army and participating in wars.
But Japan did not accept the results of the Second World War and continued, among other things, to repeat the thesis of Japanese sovereignty over the Kuril Islands.
And now the militaristic ambitions of the Japanese may receive a new boost. “Japan must develop [собственное] nuclear weapons”, such a call is contained in an article by former editor of The New York Times Barry Geven, published in the American magazine National Interest.
Geven, known for his closeness with senior White House officials, tries to justify Japan’s entry into the nuclear club by the need to contain its neighbors China, Russia and North Korea.
“Japan’s position as the leader of the global peace movement is becoming an unaffordable luxury,” says the author of the article, who also believes that its own nuclear weapons will allow the Japanese to get rid of US military bases on its territory, the existence which has been a cause of constant discord between Washington for more than half a century and Tokyo.
Today, on the Japanese islands there are about fifty military installations (bases, civil facilities, warehouses, etc.) under US jurisdiction. Some 47,000 US Army troops are stationed there.
