Japan political party leader calls for say over any use of U.S. nuclear bombs

Yes, the US will most certainly have a straw poll of the views of its vassal states before any military of foreign policy adventures.... Mr Baba, please get a grip of reality.

The man is not wrong

DOA.

"to give Japan a say in how the US deploys or could use its nuclear weapons"

No! If you want a say, then make and maintain your own nuclear weapons. And please be more careful with them than you did with Fukushima Daiichi.

Not sure if openly calling yourself a fan of Donald Trump is a winning formula. Especially with everything that is going on in the US right now. I fear this group will gain more strength and the LDP will incorporate some of their more right wing policies and try to achieve their real goal of amending the constitution to get rid of Article 9!

An “unabashed populist”?

”a populist refers to a political ideology or approach that seeks to appeal to the interests and concerns of ordinary people”

Japan could use some of this, rather than the failed central planning approach.

Not sure if openly calling yourself a fan of Donald Trump is a winning formula. 

Did he, though?

Vote me down if you are satisfied with the political status quo in japan.

Seems like a ridiculous proposal. If his goal is to block nuclear missile subs from docking, then he should say so. If his goal is to push for Japan to have its own nukes, then he should say so.

unabashed populist who admires former U.S. President Donald Trump

Please go away

What nuclear weapons? According to the government's Three Non-Nuclear Principles US military forces should have none in Japanese land, sea or airspace.

https://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/un/disarmament/nnp/index.html

If Japan had acquired right to decide how the U.S.'s nuclear arsenal should be used for the defense and security of Japan, what would it be different from Japan possessing nuclear bombs itself? Does Baba want to make Japan's long-time national policy of the three non-nuclear principles be nonexistent as well as make the pacifist constitution be shenanigans?

fxgai 07:57 - well said.

Doesn’t matter, will will be part of China and Russia soon, after the Americans run away.

This jiji Baba needs to retire.

How did the word nuclear come into use for Atom bomb? Nuclear does not sound threatening. You get the feeling that it is New and Clear. A nuclear bomb has never been used in the world. The world has seen what 2 Atom Bombs can do. The two last letters in Atom = om. The middle letters in Bomb = om.

The Japan Innovation Party, founded in 2015, has 41 seats in the lower house but aim boost that tally in the next election.

"Our goal is to contest all 289 electoral districts," Baba said.

Someone needs to.

Yes, the US will most certainly have a straw poll of the views of its vassal states before any military of foreign policy adventures.... Mr Baba, please get a grip of reality.

A tiny insular asian country telling how the world's greatest white powerhouse should conducts its policies. Laughable.

*western powerhouse

well, you get it

A Japanese political party leader and unabashed populist who admires former U.S. President Donald Trump.

Nice vocabulary from "independent" journalist.

I did not read rest of this compilate as narrative is very clear...

@Stephen - Nux is Latin for "nut". Nuculeus (with that u in the middle) means "little nut" and it's what the center of the atom (containing protons and neutrons) was named. "Atom" comes from Greek a-tomos, meaning "not-cut"; it was accurate at the time but not so much now that we can split atoms, whereas nucleus is still a good metaphor. They're just words; neither one is more threatening than the other.

I don't know what will be more dangerous if Kishi's subservience or the warmongering of this Baba fascist clown..

Japan is in very bad hands..

@deanza

What nuclear weapons? According to the government's Three Non-Nuclear Principles US military forces should have none in Japanese land, sea or airspace.

https://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/un/disarmament/nnp/index.html

Sometimes reality contradicts appearances-

[At the height of the Vietnam War, around 1,200 nuclear weapons were stored on Okinawa alone. A document declassified in 2017 shows that in 1969 Japan officially consented to the U.S. bringing nuclear weapons to Okinawa...At the height of the Vietnam War, around 1,200 nuclear weapons were stored on Okinawa alone. A document declassified in 2017 shows that in 1969 Japan officially consented to the U.S. bringing nuclear weapons to Okinawa..

In 1981, Edwin O. Reischauer, former U.S. Ambassador to Tokyo during the 1960s, acknowledged in a newspaper interview that Japan was permitting U.S. naval ships carrying nuclear weapons to transit Japanese ports under the aforementioned oral agreement... the historical record shows that the Japanese executive branch, dominated for decades by conservative LDP politicians, has at times acquiesced to asserted U.S. military necessities when it comes to nuclear weapons. ]

@Legrande But how can it be true? PM Kishida is on a campaign to eliminate all nuclear weapons.

Our good friend Baba is merely the political voice for the far-right militarists that ride through the streets in their black trucks blaring martial music...

They are revisionists that refuse to believe Japan started the war, and want to reclaim Japan's "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere"....or empire...

In other words they are far-right war-mongers...and the majority of the Japanese public looks at them as the kooks they are...

As the old saying goes, japan is just a screwdriver's turn away from having their own nuclear weapons.

Seems as though baba is getting a bit greedy.

I could be wrong but I thought the US invited both Japan and South Korea to a conference to discuss exactly this matter, the hows and whens the US would employ nuclear weapons in the defense of Japan and South Korea seeking their input into the decision so it is mutually acceptable to all. I don't have the time to dig up the old article but perhaps someone else can.

Like i said before the USA nuclear arsenal never fully left Japan 

Yes it did. The US withdrew nuclear weapons stored in Okinawa in the early 1970s because they were too expensive to protect there. The US Navy hasn't carried nuclear weapons aboard their ships since the early 1990s when nuclear depth charges, nuclear ASROC and nuclear Tomahawks were removed from ships with the last nuclear Tomahawks being diposed of some ten years ago. The only deployed nuclear weapons in the US Navy now are the Tridents on SSBNs and those never come to Japan. Likewise the USAF stopped flying deterrence patrols with live nuclear weapons in the 1970s as a result of several crashes of bombers so armed that created more grief than it was worth, especially the four lost in Spain.

Do not believe me. You can satisfy yourself to this fact using Google Earth. Study any US military base in Japan and you won't see any of the very distinct and tell-tale features of a storage facility for nuclear arms. For comparison sake look at Incirlik AB in Turkiye and the special aircraft hangars, storage bunkers, double fences and gated taxiways are plainly apparent on Google Earth.

Useful and fresh voice. LDP should gut Komeito and ally with JIP.

Actually FYI the US military nuclear arsenal never fully left Japan as they kept a launch silo operational in iwo jima in direct opposition to LDP policies

Until the early 1970s Iwo Jima was still under US occupation and the island was a US military base. Some nuclear weapons were stored there in caves for use by P-2 Neptunes, P-3 Orions, early Polaris subs (reloading equipment was kept there as well) and for nuclear bombers that would re-arm there after strikes on the USSR.

All of those weapons and capabilities were removed when the base was returned to Japan. It is not a JMSDF P-3 base. I have photos of it.

The two last letters in Atom = om. The middle letters in Bomb = om.

Irrelevant, just like the following;

4 letter words ending in om

Boom Coom Doom Edom From Glom Hoom Loom Prom Room Swom Toom Whom Zoom

5 letter words ending in om

Agrom Axiom Besom Bloom Bosom Broom Buxom Carom Celom Cloom EPROM EPSOM Gloom Groom Idiom OFCOM Sloom Sodom Spoom Stoom Venom Vroom

Pretty sure it took longer to write the title of this article than the time it took for whichever American secretary that received the request to throw it in the trash lol

This is another reason why the LDP is undefeated, either the opposition is so weak and ineffective or they drop flow statements like this

I wonder if technically speaking it would be against the Japanese Constitution to be consutled about the use of such weapons?

I posted June 30 08:28 am JST:

Does Baba want to make Japan's long-time national policy of the three non-nuclear principles be nonexistent as well as make the pacifist constitution be shenanigans?

But it's the U.S. side that's behaved in Japan as if there were no such things as the Three Non-Nuclear Principles and the pacifist constitution that renounces war as means to solve international disputes. 

U.S. nuclear submarines freely make port calls to Japan and nuclear aircraft carriers make Yokosuka their home base. Under a bilateral agreement, the U.S. can bring back nuclear weapons to Japan, especially Okinawa, whenever necessary. So, it's quite natural to expect that opinions such as Baba's should be made.

I can confirm that Yoon's government was making noises about this a few months ago and the US said that it would work with the ROK to come up with a better consultative arrangement, but I believe it's too early for any details. Of course the threat from DPRK is more pressing.

I could be wrong but I thought the US invited both Japan and South Korea to a conference to discuss exactly this matter,

Is he joking?

@deanza

@Legrande But how can it be true? PM Kishida is on a campaign to eliminate all nuclear weapons.

Kishida is a politician who will say the things the public wants to hear.

First of all we do not need more nuclear weapons anywhere on this planet, but instead we need here a sufficient number of fully equipped bunkers and shelters that keep everyone alive for quite some weeks and months in case some incoming missiles get through any available defense umbrella. And they probably will , whether a response is possible and given or not. Without those shelters, you could even have millions of nuclear weapons available as a response but will just only miserably die fast anyway.

I would be careful about following the foot steps of DT. The last Japanese politician cozied up and followed DT ended up drawing so much attention that they became the target of an assassination.

Not all attention is good attention!

He also seem like an idiot! This guy, the Dubai politician, and the politician who is close to all the MMA fighters should start a new political party.

The US will not initiate a nuclear attack.

If nuclear weapons use is pre-planned in Asia, Japan should be consulted. Actually, I bet the Japanese military has been integral in those discussions as have Korea, Taiwan, and Australia. I'm less clear whether NZ or India have been in on the consultations. If Japanese lawmakers want more say in what their military discusses, that's an internal issue to be resolved.

But if China launches 300 ICBMs at the US, there won't be time for the US to launch their ICBMs at China if they have to wait on any other country. The key to "mutually assured destruction" is that the return missiles are actually launched. My father sat in an ICBM complex. I'm 100% positive those people will do their duty and launch, if that's the order. The way things are setup, they can't tell if any order to launch is real or a test before they've turned their keys. The system takes away their ability to know and they drill all the time with only the codes entered being different between what they do for a drill and what they do for a launch.

For nuclear use outside Japan I have this to say ... when Japan pays the $35B/yr to maintain the US nuclear programs, then they get to have a say. Until then, ... er ... how to say this nicely. I give up.

The US can "touch" any part of the world with ICBMs, sub-launched missiles or bombers. There's little need to deploy nukes in places that don't want them and won't help secure them. I completely understand why Japan and Japanese are anti-nuke. Until the rest of the world gets to the same point, if that ever happens, we'll have to keep spending $20-$50B/yr to upgrade and maintain existing arsenals. The US/USSR START agreement to reduce nukes was good. That's gone. Plus, China has been increasing their nuclear capability from a "reasonable" 300 to more than 1000 the last few decades.

At this point, only Russia and China seem to be an invading countries with the goal to remove the people from those locations by causing pain just for living where they always have. China is doing this on their own "land", which is a little odd.

"He envisages a Trump-style shake-up of politics, saying without it "we won't be able to transform politics or the country"."

Trump's "style" of shaking up politics in the US has been nothing but destructive. The damage he continues to inflict on the US and its democratic institutions should be a sobering warning to all wannabe Trumps around the world, especially in countries like Japan where a pluralistic, liberal democracy has delivered freedom, security and prosperity for many decades. I hope the Japanese people aren't fooled by Baba and his ilk.

The US will not initiate a nuclear attack.

Well, they say they would, which is why they refuse the no-first-use policy.

Well, they say they would, which is why they refuse the no-first-use policy.

That's strategy. Don't tell your enemy what limits you'll have. Leave them guessing. The American public would never agree to any first strike with nuclear weapons.

FredrikJune 30 11:07 pm JST

The US will not initiate a nuclear attack.

Well, they say they would, which is why they refuse the no-first-use policy.

We have a lot of countries that back terrorism among Russia, China, and Iran. The no-first-use policy would prevent an appropriate response should one of the terrorist proxies of this group set something off.

The US can "touch" any part of the world with ICBMs, sub-launched missiles or bombers. There's little need to deploy nukes in places that don't want them and won't help secure them. 

The new B-21 is designed to have range sufficient to reach any target anywhere in the world and return to the US. They are never intended to deploy from their stateside bases, even to Guam or Hawaii, eliminating any of the heartburn that comes from the US deploying strategic forces abroad.

Nope !

There's a silo fully equipped and ready to go this whole time.

Beyond your clearance levels during your service.

Sigh. I was a weapons courier.

The Navy has demilitarized all her old nuclear weapons except Trident. Most of the nuclear weapons storage and maintenance facilities I was familiar with are now closed. It costs a lot of money to secure nuclear weapons and move them around. Now they are concentrated in a few locations in the US mainland and a few sites in NATO countries. All the Marine security detachments that used to ride the ships with nuclear weapons are gone, doing other missions now. There might still be a cave on Iwo that was built for nuclear weapons storage, that would not surprise me, but the nukes are long gone.

Japan does not possess nuclear weapons.

Japan does have about 45 tons of plutonium stored domestically.

I think it's naive to think that Japan doesn't have nuclear weapon components lying in close formation.

As IF!!

Whwatever this is… it aint opposition. Opposite of what?

A Japanese political party leader and unabashed populist who admires former U.S. President Donald Trump has called for Japan to have a say in how U.S. nuclear weapons might be used in its defense.

Ask your idol Trump what he thinks. Methinks you won't like the answer but keep sniffing his behind anyway.

The new B-21 is designed to have range sufficient to reach any target anywhere in the world and return to the US. They

With a few air-to-air refueling pauses. It isn't like any bomber can fly non-stop around the world without refueling a few times. The range is listed at 2500 miles. That's barely far enough to fly from Tokyo to Taipei and back. Safety would require refueling. Not quite the range needed to fly to Beijing and back. Without refueling in air each way.

With a few air-to-air refueling pauses. It isn't like any bomber can fly non-stop around the world without refueling a few times

According to the Air Force that is not the case. It was designed to achieve global reach from US mainland bases without the need to refuel. They apparently traded weapons payload for more fuel compared to a B-2. The B-21 is powered by two engines presumably to reduce maintenance and fuel burn.