Japan Could Alter N. Korea Nuke Equation

For the moment, an uneasy status quo reigns in the standoff over North Korea's nuclear program. The diplomatic threats and counter-threats the conflict regularly generates have dropped from the headlines, and six-party talks have restarted. The conflict over Iran's nuclear development clearly poses much higher near-term risks of political, economic and even military confrontation.

In part, that's because Israel acts as a kind of wildcard in the Middle East. The United States can decide what it is (and is not) prepared to do to manage threats from Tehran. But if the Israeli government determines that its very survival is at stake, it is fully capable of taking matters into its own hands and attacking Iran's nuclear sites. The international stalemate over North Korea will last longer, because there is not yet a wildcard state capable of upsetting East Asia's status quo.

But if Japan were eventually to feel threatened enough by North Korea's sometimes provocative behavior or China's economic and military expansion to assume a more assertive regional security role, it could challenge that delicate balance and return North Korea's nuclear program to the top of the international agenda.

Parallels already exist between Israel's and Japan's positions in these conflicts.

Both are democracies and strategically important U.S. allies. Both rely to some extent on Washington to help safeguard their security. Both face neighbors who bear deep historical grievances against them. In both, a growing number of elected officials publicly argue that their countries now live in the lengthening nuclear shadow of a hostile authoritarian neighbor.

Just as Israel could move militarily against Iran's nuclear facilities with or without U.S. help, some in Japan now suggest that their government should assume full responsibility for the country's security. Since 1947, Japan's constitution has denied its government "the right of belligerency," allowing only for maintenance of a self-defense force without the means to project military power abroad. North Korean saber-rattling and China's growing regional economic and military clout have already fueled calls for change.

Adding to Japanese anxiety is Washington's inability to back the North Koreans down. Lacking any viable military option against Pyongyang, the Bush administration has reluctantly come to accept that stalemate is preferable to any conceivable alternative.

U.S. officials warned North Korea in June that a ballistic missile test would be unacceptable. In early July, North Korea tested several ballistic missiles. In September, U.S. officials warned that an underground North Korean nuclear test would be absolutely unacceptable. On Oct. 9, North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test. Following both events, the U.N. Security Council condemned Pyongyang's actions and imposed mild sanctions.

Kim Jong-il appears satisfied that he has made his point. Having established that North Korea is a nuclear power, his government has promised to return to the diplomatic bargaining table. Continued talks are highly unlikely to produce any breakthrough, but they will provide the United States with a welcome sense of normalcy and predictability in the conflict. North Korean officials can bargain for incentive packages from China and South Korea. The Bush administration can maintain its focus on Iraq and Iran.

But what happens when Pyongyang's willingness to cross red lines, Washington's inability to do much about it, and fears that China will soon dominate the region finally push Japanese voters to support a change in Japan's pacifist security posture? To produce such an historic shift, it will take much more than Pyongyang's recent insistence that Japan not be allowed to take part in the six-party talks or another round of missile tests that litter the Sea of Japan with sputtering North Korean rockets. But Kim's government has already taken actions that increase domestic political pressure within Japan for a new security policy.

In 1998, North Korea test-fired a missile through Japanese airspace. Now that North Korea has successfully tested a nuclear weapon, the Japanese have good reason to fear Kim's regime could one day arm a missile with a nuclear warhead, one that could easily strike Japan - by design or even by accident. The next time a North Korean missile sails across Japan's main island, will the Japanese government decide that the status quo has become too dangerous to maintain? If, several years from now, there were a sharp downturn in the Japanese economy, might not a more nationalist government seek domestic popularity by playing on (perhaps well-founded) public fear and adopting a more assertive regional role?

New Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says his government has no immediate plans to amend Japan's constitution or to change the country's defense posture. But North Korea's missile launches and nuclear test have pushed Japanese officials to more seriously consider a joint U.S.-Japanese missile defense plan. That program, intended to intercept missiles from North Korea, could certainly spook China and generate a new round of Sino-Japanese tensions. There is no guarantee that the taboo in Japan against developing a nuclear weapons capability would survive a frightening confrontation with North Korea or future fears of Chinese dominance in East Asia.

None of these scenarios are likely to come to pass in the near term. The international conflict over Iran remains much more volatile than any risk currently posed by North Korea. But a potential wildcard in Japan could pose real longer-term dangers, because there are no multilateral institutions in Asia today that are capable of mediating security disputes among the region's most powerful states. In the meantime, the U.S.-North Korean stalemate doesn't look so bad.