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From: Office of Tetje Rod-Larsen 
Subject: April 14 update 
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2014 15:03:02 +0000 
14 April, 2014 
Article I. 
The Washington Post 
The United States' Middle East peace process paradox 
Jackson Diehl 
Article 2. 
The National Interest 
Khamenei's Nuclear Dilemma 
Muhammad Sahimi 
Article 3. 
The Washington Post 
European Union nations see an uptick in economic security at 
just the right time 
Editorial 
Article 4. 
Al Monitor 
Who betrayed Egypt's revolution? 
Wael Nawara 
Article S. 
The National Interest 
Let Asia Go Nuclear 
Harvey M. Sapolsky, Christine M. Leah 
Article 6. 
NYT 
Ambiguities of Japan's Nuclear Policy 
Norihiro Kato 
Article 7. 
The Hindu 
Dancing with the nuclear djinn 
Praveen Swami 
The Washington Post 
The United States' Middle East peace  process 
paradox 
Jackson Diehl 
April 14, 2014 -- The Middle East "peace process" can look like an endless 
loop of diplomatic failures that leave Israelis and Palestinians stuck in in-
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tractable conflict. So as the latest round of U.S.-sponsored negotiation 
teeters on the brink, it's worth pointing out that during the course of the last 
25 years the two peoples have made glacially slow but cumulatively 
enormous progress toward coexistence. In fact, they have traveled most of 
the path to a final settlement. 
A decisive majority of Israelis and the political elite have given up the 
dream of a "greater Israel" and accepted that a state of Palestine will be 
created in the Gaza Strip and most of the West Bank. That was out of the 
question in 1990, when Secretary of State James Baker threw up his hands 
in frustration and advised the parties to "call us . . . when you are serious 
about  peace." 
Palestinians have dropped their denial of Israel's right to exist and, for the 
most part, the tactics of terrorism and violence that undid the diplomacy of 
the Clinton administration. Once racked by suicide bombings and messy 
military sweeps, Israel, the West Bank and lately even Gaza have been 
islands of relative tranquility in a bloody region. Israeli troops that once 
patrolled every major Palestinian town are gone. They are replaced in the 
West Bank by competent Palestinian security forces whose commanders 
work closely with their Israeli counterparts — another once-inconceivable 
development. 
True, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are still far apart on the specific 
terms for the Palestine state, including where the border will be drawn, 
how former Palestinian refugees will be handled and whether and how 
Jerusalem will be divided. But, contrary to the claim of Secretary of State 
John F. Kerry, the time for a two-state settlement is not running out. In fact, 
the doomsayers who made that same argument 25 years ago, such as Israeli 
demographer Meron Benvenisti  , had a more plausible case. 
Then, Israel was aggressively expanding Jewish settlements. Now, all but a 
handful of the new housing it is adding is in areas near the 1967 border that 
both sides know will become part of Israel. Despite all the episodic furors 
over the settlements, careful studies have shown that 80 percent of their 
residents could be absorbed by Israel's annexation of less than 5 percent of 
the West Bank — and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has 
hinted at his acceptance of the principle that the territory could be swapped 
for land that is now part of Israel. 
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So why isn't this progress reflected in the diplomacy? Simple: Almost 
every positive development in Israeli-Palestinian relations has happened 
outside the "peace process." Israelis accepted Palestinian statehood 
because they realized their country could not keep the West Bank and 
remain both Jewish and democratic. Palestinians abandoned violence 
because it failed to end the occupation and was far more costly to 
Palestinians than to Israelis. Security cooperation works in the West Bank 
because Israel and the Palestinian authority share an interest in combating 
Islamic extremists. 
The United States has helped to advance this process not by holding peace 
talks but by backing up the pragmatic decisions of Israeli and Palestinian 
leaders. George W. Bush helped Ariel Sharon make the decision to 
withdraw from the Gaza Strip and to carry out the first dismantlement of 
settlements in the West Bank by endorsing the principle that Israel would 
retain settlement blocs near its 1967 border. U.S. training and funding has 
helped create those Palestinian security forces. 
The Obama administration could have kept the forward movement going 
by continuing to promote the construction of Palestinian institutions —
including a democratic, corruption-resistant government — and by pushing 
Israel to turn over more security responsibility and remove impediments to 
the Palestinian economy. Instead it chose to embrace the ever-failing peace 
process and bet that it could quickly broker a deal between two very 
reluctant leaders: Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas. 
The wager not only has foundered, but it also has partly reversed the more 
organic change that was underway. Freed from pressure from Washington, 
Abbas forced out his reformist prime minister and repeatedly postponed 
promised elections. He is now in the tenth year of the four-year term to 
which he was elected. Big-time corruption in his regime is back, as are 
serious human rights abuses. Rancor over the failing peace talks 
meanwhile is causing Israel to withhold cooperation with the Palestinian 
Authority, which could cause its collapse. 
The moral of this story is that the United States can't produce a Mideast 
settlement by diplomatic blitzkrieg. It must rather patiently invest in the 
conditions and institutions that would make a deal possible — and not call 
a conference until conditions are ripe and leaders ready. By stubbornly 
refusing to recognize that principle, President Obama and Kerry probably 
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have postponed Palestinian statehood. But the odds are that the evolution 
toward peace eventually will go on without them. 
The National Interest 
Khamenei's Nuclear Dilemma 
Muhammad Sahimi 
April 14, 2014 -- As nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 (the five 
permanent UN Security Council members, plus Germany) continue, both 
sides have offered hope that they'll reach a comprehensive agreement. The 
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Wendy Sherman, Under-
Secretary of State for Political Affairs who heads the U.S. delegation have 
both admitted that Iran has kept its  promises under the Geneva Accord, 
signed between the two sides last November. The U.S. and its allies have 
also delivered on their part of the deal, hence providing Iran with slight, 
but still significant, relief from the crippling sanctions that they have 
imposed on Iran. 
U.S. officials have expressed optimism that the final and comprehensive 
agreement will end the dispute over Iran's nuclear program. The Iranians, 
and in particular Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and President Hassan 
Rouhani, have been saying the same for quite some time. But, of course, 
drafting the text of the agreement is one thing, the demand by P5+1 that 
Iran must drastically cut back on the scope of its nuclear program and 
whether Iran agrees, are completely difficult, and potentially deal-breaking 
issues. It is here that the role of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali 
Khamenei, is paramount. 
The fact is Mr. Khamenei is trapped between a rock—the Iranian nation—
and a hard place—his hardline supporters. The Iranian people elected 
President Rouhani in a landslide last June, and have been demanding 
uprooting of the vast corruption under Mr. Rouhani's predecessor, 
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a functioning and robust economy, better 
relations with the West, and a more open and tolerant political system that 
puts Iran on a firm and definitive path toward a true and inclusive 
democracy. Resolving the nuclear dispute with the West and lifting of the 
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sanctions represent major steps in this direction. Mr. Khamenei has 
supported the nuclear negotiations. As far back as 21 March 2013, he 
signaled a fundamental change in his position regarding nuclear 
negotiations with P5+1, and has consistently said that he supports the 
negotiations as long as Iran's nuclear rights are recognized and respected. 
Ina speech on April 9, Mr. Khamenei emphasized again his support for the 
nuclear negotiations, although he also accused the U.S. of presenting an 
image of Iran's nuclear program and goals that are far from reality. 
But, the hard place—Iran's hardliners that represent Khamenei's main 
social base of support—is not interested in a nuclear compromise. The 
hardliners have been using every opportunity and excuse to attack the 
Rouhani administration, have likened the nuclear deal to the Holocaust, 
have claimed that Iran has made too many concessions for too little in 
return, and have used the Maj les [the Iranian parliament] to create 
problems for the government by constantly summoning various ministers, 
and in particular Mr. Zarif, to explain his position. They have even 
threatened to impeach him. 
Mr. Khamenei has also made statements that the hardliners, both in Tehran 
and Washington, point to as indications that he is not interested in a 
reasonable compromise. For example, between the signing of the Geneva 
Accord and the beginning of the new round of negotiations in Vienna in 
February, Mr. Khamenei expressed his lack of hope for the negotiations to 
succeed. In particular, he said on February 17 that although he supports the 
nuclear negotiations, he does not believe that the negotiations with the U.S. 
"will go anywhere." The mainstream media in the U.S., the hawks and the 
Israel lobby that are looking for any excuse to scuttle the diplomatic 
process, quickly interpreted Khamenei's speech as indicating his 
unwillingness to compromise. But, as explained elsewhere, Mr. Khamenei 
was misquoted: he supports the negotiations and is definitively interested 
in a diplomatic solution, but he is pessimistic about the prospects for better, 
nonhostile relations with the United States. 
Likewise, Tehran's hardliners, and in particular some of the leading 
commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps [IRGC] and 
intelligence officials in the Ahmadinejad administration, have also used 
Mr. Khamenei's pronouncements to justify their opposition to the nuclear 
negotiations. The apposition became louder after the European parliament 
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approved a resolution in which it criticized Iran for its human-rights record 
and proposed to open an office in Tehran by the end of this year, 
presumably to enable the European Union to monitor the state of human 
rights in Iran. One member of the Majles, Nader Ghazipoor, declared that 
"the Iranian nation will not accept the disgrace of having another `den of 
spies' on its `sacred soil'," a reference to the old U.S. embassy in Tehran. 
Other hardline MPs suggested that the resolution will negatively impact the 
en gotiations and have even suggested withdrawing from them. There is 
also another suggestion in the Majles to fingerprint members of European 
delegations that travel to Iran, presumably to "humiliate" them. 
The fact is, nuclear negotiations with Iran would not have advanced as far 
as they have if the Rouhani administration did not have Mr. Khamenei's 
support. Therefore, the question is why Mr. Khamenei makes statements 
that might be interpreted as indicating his unwillingness to compromise. 
The answer, as already pointed out, is that he is trapped between rock and a 
hard place, and that the reasons for his statements that "please" the 
hardliners are twofold. 
One reason is, of course, that the hardliners, the most important base of 
support for Mr. Khamenei, oppose the negotiations. Some of the hardliners 
do so for ideological reasons. They do not trust the United States, and are 
afraid that President Rouhani and Mr. Zarif will make too many 
concessions in order to close Iran's nuclear dossier. Others oppose the 
negotiations because during the Ahmadinejad administration they gained 
their political and economic power as a result of the hostility of the U.S. 
toward Iran, and are afraid that if the negotiations succeed and the relations 
between the two nations improve, they will lose everything. Thus, in order 
to control such hardliners, Mr. Khamenei must appear resolute at home. 
The second reason is that Mr. Khamenei is trying to create a political cover 
for himself and his authority, in case the negotiations fail. He recognizes 
that he does not have the authority that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the 
founder of the Islamic Republic, enjoyed with the people. When he 
declared to the nation in 1988 that he would end the war with Iraq, he also 
took full responsibility for it, after opposing it for six years after Iran's 
military had beaten back the Iraqi army and expelled it from Iran's 
territory. Mr. Khamenei is maneuvering to put himself in a position to be 
able to declare that he knew all along that the U.S. is not interested in a 
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diplomatic resolution to the conflict, if the negotiations fail, and that the 
failure is not his fault. Thus, his pessimism about reaching an agreement 
with the U.S. is mostly for his hardline supporters, as well a way of 
securing his own authority. 
But, despite the fact that the hardliners are the most important base of 
support for Mr. Khamenei, he also recognizes that they have been cornered 
by the track record of Ahmadinejad that he himself had helped bring to 
power and had strongly supported for at least six years. Hardly a day goes 
by without the discovery of another major Ahmadinejad-era corruption 
case. In addition, Iran's economy suffered greatly during Ahmadinejad's 
second term. In particular, it contracted by about 5.7 percent in 2012, and 
by 1.7 percent during most of 2013. These, together with the extreme 
political repression that the hardliners imposed on the nation as a result of 
the Green Movement of 2009-2010, created an explosive situation, but also 
completely discredited the hardliners. Cracks have emerged within the 
hardline movement, and many have expressed regrets for supporting 
Ahmadinejad. Gholam-Ali Haddad Adel, the influential conservative and 
father-in-law of Mr. Khamenei's son, AI QjaU., was quoted saying "God 
regrets creating Ahmadinejad." This has provided Mr. Khamenei with 
flexibility for maneuvering, even though he should take the lion's share of 
blame for what happened during the Ahmadinejad administration. 
Mr. Khamenei's support for the nuclear negotiations is not, however, 
indefinite. The Rouhani administration must be able to show tangible 
results to the nation, and demonstrate that it did not cross the red lines that 
Mr. Khamenei has set for the negotiations, namely, recognition of Iran's 
right to peaceful use of nuclear technology, particularly uranium 
enrichment. Thus, talk of dismantling a major part of Iran's nuclear 
infrastructure, espoused by the neocons, as well as Israeli and Saudi 
Arabian lobbies in the United States, will also not go anywhere. Iran will 
not agree to it, but time and again it has demonstrated its willingness to 
make major concessions and to follow a prudent approach, only to be 
rebuffed by the United States and its allies. Asking Iran to give up a major 
part of its nuclear infrastructure is tantamount to demanding that it 
surrender its sovereignty and national rights. It will not happen. 
As the author has emphasized repeatedly—if Washington is interested in a 
diplomatic resolution of the dispute with Iran, which in turn will have a 
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tremendously positive effect on peace and stability in the Middle East, 
especially in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan, it should recognize the 
Rouhani administration's domestic constraints, and offer compromises that 
President Rouhani can take home and demonstrate to his nation, including 
the hardliners, that diplomacy with the U.S. can work. That would also 
ensure continuation of Mr. Khamenei's support for Rouhani, and 
marginalizing the hardliners. 
Iran analyst Muhammad Sahimi, a Professor at the University of Southern 
California is the editor of the website Iran News & Middle East Reports. 
The Washington Post 
European Union nations see an uptick in 
economic security at just the right time 
Editorial 
April 14, 2014 -- Vladimir Putin's seizure of Crimea and destabilization of 
Ukraine have added geopolitics to a list of Europe's woes that had 
previously been headed by economics. In fact, if not for Mr. Putin's land 
grab, the big story out of Europe might be its surprising economic 
comeback. 
That's a relative judgment, to be sure; Europe has come back only in 
comparison to the disaster it faced two years ago, or to the even larger 
collapse that many forecast. Still, after many long months of negative 
growth and high unemployment, heavily indebted governments such as 
those of Spain and Italy can now access credit markets at rates not much 
higher than Germany, Europe's economic powerhouse. Even Greece sold 
five-year bonds at manageable interest rates on Thursday; the European 
Commission predicts the Greek economy to grow in 2014 for the first time 
in half a decade, albeit only by 0.6 percent. 
These results are a tribute not only to these countries' willingness to 
impose wrenching austerity. They also bespeak an implicit bailout from the 
European Central Bank, whose president, Mario Draghi, persuaded would-
be investors in official debt that the ECB would do "whatever it takes" to 
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shore up the currency, the euro, in which that debt is denominated. But the 
progress hardly means that the region's problems are well and truly behind 
it. That could only be said once it resumes sustainable economic growth, 
which, in turn, hinges on the resumption of growth in the second and third 
largest economies after Germany: France and Italy. 
France and Italy are plagued not only by insufficient demand, which 
austerity worsens, but also by overregulation and job-destroying tax 
systems. Entrenched interest groups have fended off structural reform for 
years. Fortunately new prime ministers, Matteo Renzi in Italy and Manuel 
Valls of France (the latter an appointee of President Francois Hollande), are 
proposing fiscal policies that actually address the high cost of doing 
private-sector business in their respective countries. Since these policies 
include tax cuts, however, they also might increase French and Italian 
borrowing in the short term, above the levels permitted by the European 
Union. 
The powers that be within the European Union — German Chancellor 
Angela Merkel and Mr. Draghi — would be wise to grant Mr. Valls and 
Mr. Renzi the fiscal wiggle room they need. It's one thing to borrow for 
current consumption, which is what France and Italy have done, in spades, 
until now. It's quite another to borrow for purposes of enhancing an 
economy's growth capacity. To the extent that France and Italy are at last 
genuinely and verifiably doing the latter — a big if, admittedly — they 
should get the support of their European partners. At a time when Mr. Putin 
is moving tanks on Ukraine's borders and brandishing Europe's  gla 
supplies as a political weapon, Europe can ill afford any additional crises, 
economic or political. Indeed, if they needed any additional reasons to 
value unity and pragmatism in their mutual economic dealings, the Russian 
leader has supplied them. 
Anicle 4. 
Al Monitor 
Who betrayed Egypt's revolution? 
Wael N a \\ di a 
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April 11, 2014 -- A few days ago, activist Shahenda Maklad, 76, despite 
being sick and bedridden, carried herself to the Lawyers Syndicate where 
she signed a notarized affidavit supporting (former) Field Marshal Abdel 
Fattah al-Sisi's candidacy for Egypt's presidential race. The law requires 
that a candidate must get a minimum of 25,000 such affidavits with at least 
1,000 of them per governorate from 15 of Egypt's 27 governorates. 
As soon as news leaked that Maklad was supporting Sisi, she was brutally 
attacked on social media with some activists accusing her of stooping too 
low and smearing her entire history of struggle. In response, to their 
attacks, Maklad criticized the elitist activists who use banners of "martyrs' 
blood" for their own egotistic gain while having no feet to stand upon in 
the street among Egyptians. 
To this day, Maklad continues to fight for what she believes in. In January, 
she demanded the removal of Mohamed Ibrahim, the minister of interior, 
and condemned torture and brutal police practices against detainees. Last 
week, Maklad was one of the supporters of the women's sit-in at the 
presidential palace, demanding the release of activists Ahmed Douma and 
Ahmed Maher, sentenced for three years in prison for violating the 
demonstration law. Yet, while opposing certain actions of the interim 
government, she was brave enough to break ranks with her usual club and 
announce near the end of last year that the majority of Egyptians are 
looking forward to having Sisi as Egypt's next president. Following her 
own conviction, she decided to support him and not her lifelong friend and 
leftist opposition compatriot, Hamdin Sabahy. 
In 1997, Maklad, along with three of her friends, Wedad Mitry, Safinaz 
Kazem and Amina Rachid, was featured in a highly acclaimed Canadian 
documentary film, "Four Women of Egypt." During Morsi's reign, 
Shahenda's iconic image of being hushed in front of the presidential palace 
on Dec. 5, 2012, by the heavy hand of one of the Brotherhood's 
leaders/thugs and a close aide to Morsi, aggravated many Egyptians and 
thousands rushed to the street in demonstration moved by this particular 
photo. Robert Mackey of The New York Times' blog The Lede headlined 
that image as "Clash of Cultures Within Egypt Made Visible in Single 
Frame of Video." 
Maklad has been an Egyptian heroine and a symbol of Egypt's 
revolution(s) since forever. She was a co-founder of virtually every 
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opposition movement formed in the past few decades, including Kifaya, 
the National Association for Change and Egyptian Women for Change. The 
list is pages long. Hers could be seen as a "Lifelong Trip to Tahrir" as the 
headline of Radwan Adam's article suggested in February 2012, one year 
after Egypt's January revolution. Adam further recalled when Che Guevara 
and Gamal Abdel Nasser went to Kamshish to salute the young woman, 
who dared to rebel against feudalism and lost her husband who was 
assassinated in the fight, along with her peasant friends. 
Since then, Maklad has championed the cause of poor farmers. I remember 
before 2011 being invited to the launch of the "farmers union," which she 
founded a few months before the January 2011 revolution. She is simply 
the personal hero of many people. That does not mean she could do no 
wrong. But to imply that she sold out the revolution is a little silly and 
screams of ignorance and fake moral superiority. 
Maklad is not the only activist pushed outside the exclusive "revolutionary 
club" presided upon by a few self-appointed hard-core activists. According 
to overzealous revolutionaries, the list of exiled members is long and 
includes, believe it or not, Abdel Gelil Mostafa, former head of Kifaya and 
National Association for Change; Ibrahim Eisa, the renowned journalist 
who was tried and persecuted during Hosni Mubarak's rule; Kamal Khalil, 
an iconic leader of almost every important uprising, demonstration and 
protest; Ahmed Fouad Negm, a revolutionary poet who was persecuted by 
every regime since the 1960s; Salah Adly, a leader of the communist 
movement; and Bahaa Eddin Shaaban, leader of the National Association 
for Change and the Egyptian Socialist Party. 
Many activists and revolutionaries have become so disillusioned and 
frustrated with the popular tide turning against their lofty discourse. 
Shokeir, a Twitter activist, may have best expressed this isolation and 
estrangement in a few simple words: "Wait for no one," which expressed 
aloneness, despair and loss of faith. The screaming pain of despair, 
aloneness and loss of faith could only be equaled by the sad relief of when 
you no longer have high expectations, or any expectations, from anyone 
and as a result feel the comfort of never having to be disappointed again. 
Has it all been in vain? The martyrs' blood and the high hopes for 
democracy, dignity and social justice? Questions of self-doubt and the 
deafening silence are heard from the youth, in particular those who 
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participated in the 18-day uprising that ended 30 years of Mubarak's rule 
and engaged in the countless Friday sit-ins and marches that followed. 
Some envy the martyrs who honorably died by gunfire in their glory only 
to leave us revolutionaries to die by the sword of silence, in the shadows 
created by the absence of cameras and the silence screaming from 
departing microphones and vanishing media attention. 
It is unfair to ask revolutionaries to be "wise" and calculating. That is just 
against the nature of revolution. You cannot be exactly pragmatic and 
prudent and at the same time face armored vehicles and security forces 
with bare chests. But is it just about being young, passionate and idealistic? 
Is it just about the promises made to friends bleeding in your arms while 
you watch life slip away from their dimming eyes? In many cases, I would 
say yes. This is the case. In other cases, it is more about identifying with a 
certain exclusive club that gets more exclusive when members are kicked 
out on charges of betraying the revolution. It may even be about that 
monstrous collective ego that can only be fed by crushed images of those 
once considered great and heroic symbols of struggle. It probably does 
make one feel morally superior when everyone else is eventually found 
guilty of treason. 
In the beginning it was easy. Just vilify the foloul, high officials and top 
aides of the Mubarak regime. Then the label was extended to include 
everyone who was once a member of the National Democratic Party. Then 
it was yet expanded again to include those who ever had anything to do 
with or even shaken hands with anyone related to the Mubarak regime. It 
was expanded again to include those who voted for Ahmed Shafik or Amr 
Moussa in the 2012 presidential elections. And as the monster needs to be 
continuously fed, new flesh must come at the end from the activists 
themselves, leaving only a handful of revolutionaries who belong to that 
exclusive club, who secretly even have smaller circles of who is really true 
revolutionary and who is so and so. At the end, a few are left at the feet of 
the Press Syndicate, each taking a mental selfie while really admiring his 
ability to ignore a camera that doesn't exist in the first place. 
There is a unique Egyptian sound gesture, which comes from between the 
front teeth to barely escape through tightly, pressed lips. It is a subtle 
gesture expressing utter sorrow and disgust. Many activists make that 
sound as they exchange tales of those who betrayed the revolution and sold 
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out the blood of the martyrs. You cannot help but wonder: Who actually 
betrayed the revolution? 
Wael Nawara is columnist for Al-Monitor's Egypt Pulse. He is an Egyptian 
writer and activist. He is also the co-founder of Al Dostor Party, the 
National Association for Change and El Ghad Party. Formerly president of 
the Arab Alliance for Freedom and Democracy, he was a visiting fellow at 
the Institute of Politics, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard 
University. 
Article 5. 
The National Interest 
Let Asia Go Nuclear 
Harvey M. Sapolsky, Christine M. Leah 
April 14, 2014 -- America's policy of opposing the proliferation of nuclear 
weapons needs to be more nuanced. What works for the United States in 
the Middle East may not in Asia. We do not want Iran or Saudi Arabia to 
get the bomb, but why not Australia, Japan, and South Korea? We are 
opposed to nuclear weapons because they are the great military equalizer, 
because some countries may let them slip into the hands of terrorists, and 
because we have significant advantage in precision conventional weapons. 
But our opposition to nuclear weapons in Asia means we are committed to 
a costly and risky conventional arms race with China over our ability to 
protect allies and partners lying nearer to China than to us and spread over 
a vast maritime theater. 
None of our allies in Asia possess nuclear weapons. Instead, they are 
protected by what is called extended deterrence, our vaguely stated 
promise to use nuclear weapons in their defense if they are threatened by 
regional nuclear powers, China, North Korea and Russia. We promise, in 
essence, to trade Los Angeles for Tokyo, Washington for Canberra, and 
Seattle for Seoul, as preposterous as that might seem. 
In order to avoid such a test of our will, the United States attempts to 
contain China in particular, but others as well, via a conventional force 
buildup—the so-called pivot to Asia. We station tens of thousands of troops 
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in Japan and South Korea, and are expanding our presence in Guam, 
Australia, Singapore, and the Philippines. The conventional challenge is 
China's ability to deny access for US forces in or near the island chains 
that are our Asian allies and that at the same time guard China. As China's 
military grows the access issue becomes more problematic because of 
China's ability to saturate the zone with missiles and aircraft that can 
threaten our military presence. The Air-Sea Battle operational concept, a 
costly networking of missile defenses, long-range-strike capabilities and 
naval forces has been the US military's response. Billions are being spent 
by the United States to assure our Asian allies of our will to protect them 
conventionally as well with extended nuclear deterrence. 
But there is a better, cheaper way to provide security in Asia. We should 
encourage our allies to acquire their own nuclear weapons. With nuclear 
weapons Australia, Japan and the others would have the capability to 
protect themselves from bullying. Nearly all of the allies are rich enough 
and technologically advanced enough to acquire and maintain nuclear 
forces. And those who are not—the Philippines, for example—lose much 
of their vulnerability once the focus shifts away from conventional 
defenses of the island chains. Nuclear weapons helped prevent the Cold 
War from turning hot. In Asia they can stop a conventional arms race that 
is forcing the United States to invest in weapons that can block the Chinese 
military on its doorstep, thousands of miles from our own. Let our Asian 
allies defend themselves with the weapon that is the great equalizer. 
Tailored proliferation would not likely be destabilizing. Asia is not the 
Middle East. Japan, South Korea, Australia, and even Taiwan are strong 
democracies. They have stable political regimes. Government leaders are 
accountable to democratic institutions. Civilian control of the military is 
strong. And they don't have a history of lobbing missiles at each other—
they are much more risk-averse than Egypt, Syria or Iran. America's allies 
would be responsible nuclear weapon states. 
A number of Asian nations have at one time or another considered going 
nuclear, Australia for example, with tacit U.S. Defense Department 
encouragement in the 1960s. They chose what for them was the cheaper 
alternative of living under the US nuclear umbrella. Free nuclear 
guarantees provided by the United States, coupled with the US Navy 
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patrolling offshore, have allowed our allies to grow prosperous without 
having to invest much in their own defense. 
Confident that the United States protects them, our allies have even begun 
to squabble with China over strings of uninhabited islands in the hope that 
there is oil out there. It is time to give them a dose of fiscal and military 
reality. And the way to do that is to stop standing between them and their 
nuclear-armed neighbors. It will not be long before they realize the value 
of having their own nuclear weapons. The waters of the Pacific under those 
arrangements will stay calm, and we will save a fortune. 
Harvey M. 
 
 
Professor Emeritus and the Former Director of The 
MIT Security Studies Program. Christine M Leah is a Stanton Fellow at 
the MIT Security Studies Program. 
NYT 
Ambiguities of Japan's Nuclear Policy 
Norihiro Kato 
April 13, 2014 -- Tokyo — When Yasunari Kawabata became the first 
Japanese to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968, he gave a 
speech called "Japan, the Beautiful, and Myself' that presented a benignly 
aesthetic portrait of the so-called Japanese spirit larded with references to 
classical poetry, the tea ceremony and ikebana. When Kenzaburo Oe 
received the prize in 1994, he titled his lecture, "Japan, the Ambiguous, 
and Myself," and offered a critical take on the country's ambiguities, 
starting its being part of Asia and simultaneously aligned with the West. 
I was reminded of the contrast between Japan the Beautiful and Japan the 
Ambiguous late last month when, during the third Nuclear Security 
Summit in the Hague, the Japanese government announced that it would 
hand over to the United States more than 700 pounds of weapons-grade 
plutonium and a vast supply of highly enriched uranium. It struck me then 
that the ambiguities of Japan's policy on nuclear weapons might be coming 
up against the nationalist agenda of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, also the 
author of "Towards a Beautiful Country: My Vision for Japan." 
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Although Japan does not have nuclear weapons, it has a nuclear weapons 
policy. The strategy was set out by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1969 
in an internal document whose existence was kept secret until the daily 
Mainichi Shimbun published it in 1994. That paper states that "for the time 
being we will maintain the policy of not possessing nuclear weapons" but 
also "keep the economic and technical potential for the production of 
nuclear weapons, while seeing to it that Japan will not be interfered with in 
this regard." Known as "technological deterrence," this posture is 
inherently ambiguous, and has been made more so still by the ministry's 
insistence that the document was a research paper rather than a statement 
of policy. 
In a 2000 essay about the future of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the 
disarmament advocate Jonathan Schell drew a distinction between capacity 
and intention in describing the range of positions states may adopt on 
nuclear weapons. At the time, Sweden had the capacity to produce such 
weapons but not the intention; Libya had the intention but not the capacity. 
Japan, by contrast, stands out as the only nation that has both the capacity 
and the intention to produce nuclear weapons but does not act on its 
intention. It has pioneered a type of nuclear deterrence that relies not on 
any overt threat, but on the mere suggestion of a latent possibility. 
Despite all the evidence to this effect, the Japanese government has 
continued to deny that it has pursued technological deterrence because 
acknowledging this would both contravene the spirit of the =. 
and 
anger the Japanese people, who remain strongly opposed to nuclear 
weapons. Thus Japan has managed to signal to other countries that it could 
produce nuclear weapons, and that it would if it had to, while 
simultaneously making it hard for anyone, either at home or abroad, to 
object. 
On the one hand, since the 1970s Japan has pursued a pacifist foreign 
policy best symbolized by its Three Non-Nuclear Principles: "Japan shall 
neither possess nor manufacture nuclear weapons, nor shall it permit their 
introduction into Japanese territory." On the other hand, starting in the 
1950s it has implemented a nuclear energy policy centered on a closed 
nuclear fuel cycle, which yields nuclear materials that can be used to run 
so-called fast-breeding reactors. Japan has one such facility, which it uses 
for research, but it has been plagued by problems and is not commercially 
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viable. Although the fuel cycle yields plutonium through the reprocessing 
of spent fuel, Japan has managed to escape the usual restrictions on the 
possession of such materials by stressing its commitment to the Three Non-
Nuclear Principles and so, implicitly, its special status as the only country 
in the world to have suffered atomic bombings. 
But now the two props of Japan's not-so-secret strategy of technological 
deterrence are falling apart. The Abe cabinet has adopted a confrontational 
stance toward Japan's East Asian neighbors. It has weakened the country's 
previous commitment to not exporting arms to certain types of countries, 
including those subject to arms embargoes or involved in international 
conflicts. Other countries, sensing that the Abe administration may want to 
jettison the Three Non-Nuclear Principles, have begun expressing concern 
over Japan's stores of plutonium. 
At the same time, the government is finding it increasingly difficult to 
explain why Japan should maintain its fuel-cycle policy. In the wake of the 
Fukushima disaster in 2011, none of Japan's 48 commercial nuclear 
reactors is currently in operation, and popular opinion is mounting against 
the idea of developing more special fast-breeder reactors. 
To make matters worse, the U.S.-Japan nuclear cooperation agreement that 
came into force in 1988 — which allows Japan to recover and store 
plutonium derived from fuel the United States supplied for Japan's power 
plants — is set to expire in 2018. The agreement had widely been expected 
to be renewed. But then in January the U.S. government requested the 
return of some plutonium and highly enriched uranium it lent to Japan for 
research purposes under another, older, agreement. (These are the materials 
Japan agreed to return last month.) On the face of it, Washington's request 
appears to be merely one part of a broader effort to ensure the security of 
nuclear materials. Yet it has sparked speculation both in Japan and abroad 
that the U.S. government is worried about the Abe government's 
belligerence and may be reconsidering extending the 1988 cooperation 
agreement. 
If Mr. Abe keeps pushing ahead with his confrontational agenda, his 
government may lose Washington's support. In that case, Japan will either 
have to submit to the same rules that apply to other countries on nuclear 
materials or isolate itself by openly flouting them. One can only hope that 
Japan's unusual approach to nuclear deterrence will, in the end, have a 
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deterrent effect on Mr. Abe himself — that ambiguity will win out over 
beauty. 
Norihiro Kato is a literary scholar and a professor at Waseda University. 
This article was translated by Michael Emmerich from the Japanese. 
Article 7 
The Hindu 
Dancing with the nuclear djinn 
Praveen Swami 
The Bharatiya Janata Party's election manifesto promises to review 
India's nuclear doctrine. What does this portend? 
April 12, 2014 -- He saw the signs of the approaching doomsday all around 
him: in moral degradation, in casual sex, in the rise of western power, in 
space travel, in our high-tech age. God, wrote Pakistan's nuclear-weapons 
guru Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood in Mechanics of the Doomsday..., had 
not privileged man to know when it would come, but "the promised Hour 
is not a far off event now." It would come as a "great blast," perhaps 
"initiated by some catastrophic man-made devices, such as sudden 
detonation of a large number of nuclear bombs." 
Long mocked by his colleagues for his crazed beliefs — the physicist 
Pervez Hoodbhoy records him as saying, "djinns, being fiery creatures, 
ought to be tapped as a free source of energy" — and condemned to 
obscurity after his arrest on charges of aiding the Taliban, Mr. Mahmood 
may yet be remembered as a prophet. 
The doctrine debate 
India's next government will, without dispute, find itself dancing with the 
nuclear djinn Mr. Mahmood helped unleash. In its election manifesto, the 
Bharatiya Janata Party has promised to "study in detail India's nuclear 
doctrine, and revise and update it to make it relevant to [the] challenges of 
current times." Mr. Seshadri Chari, a member of the group that formulated 
this section of the party's manifesto said: "why should we tie our hands 
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into accepting a global no-first-use policy, as has been proposed by the 
Prime Minister recently?" 
The debate will come in dangerous times. Pakistan has been growing its 
arsenal low-yield plutonium nuclear weapons, also called tactical or theatre 
nuclear weapons. Estimates suggest some 10-12 new nuclear warheads are 
being added to the country's 90-110 strong arsenal, and new reactors going 
critical at Khushab will likely boost that number even further. New Delhi 
must respond — but the seeds of a nuclear apocalypse could sprout if it 
gets that response wrong. 
Mr. Chari's grasp of fact doesn't give much reason to hope for much else: 
India's no-first-use commitment was made by a government his party led, 
not Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In 1998, battling to contain the 
international fallout from the Pokhran II nuclear tests, Prime Minister Atal 
Bihari Vajpayee promised Parliament that "India would not be the first to 
use nuclear weapons." Later, in August 1999, the National Security 
Advisory Board's draft nuclear doctrine stated that India would only 
"retaliate with sufficient nuclear weapons to inflict destruction and 
punishment that the aggressor will find unacceptable if nuclear weapons 
are used against India and its forces." 
The no-first-use posture, scholar Ashley Tellis has noted in his magisterial 
book, India's Emerging Nuclear Posture, was founded on a pragmatic 
judgment of India's strategic circumstances. Even if India needed to fight 
shallow cross-border wars, Dr. Tellis argued, its "nominal military 
superiority over Pakistan and its local military superiority, allow such 
operations to be conducted by conventional means alone." 
For more than a decade-and-a-half, the commitment has held, but there 
have been signs it is fraying at the edges. In 2003, India announced it 
reserved the right to deliver a nuclear-weapons response to a chemical or 
biological attack, a significant caveat to the no-first-use promise. Then, in a 
speech delivered at the National Defence College, National Security 
Adviser, Shivshankar Menon, appeared to add a caveat to India's nuclear 
doctrine, saying in passing that it committed to "no first use against non-
nuclear weapon states." This was interpreted by some observers to mean 
India might consider first strikes against nuclear-weapons states. 
Dr. Singh reiterated Mr. Vajpayee's formulation early this month — but 
there is at least some reason to believe the caveats reflect ongoing debates 
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at the highest levels of the strategic community. 
From its genesis, questions have hung over India's no-first-use 
commitment. How would India react to credible intelligence that an 
imminent Pakistani first-strike against its own nuclear arsenal, would 
degrade its ability to retaliate? How might India deal with an attack that 
came from an insurgent group operating from within Pakistani territory, 
which seized control of a nuclear weapon? In addition, as the scholar Vipin 
Narang has argued, India has not committed against using its superior air 
power against Pakistani missile launchers armed with nuclear warheads —
confronting its western adversary in a "use-it-or-lose-it" dilemma. 
Bharat Karnad, a strategic affairs commentator who will likely influence a 
future BJP-led government's nuclear thinking, thus described no-first-use 
as something of a pious fiction: "one of those restrictions which countries 
are willing to abide by except in war." 
Dangerous future 
This much, we do know: the next government, whoever forms it, will 
command a more lethal nuclear arsenal than ever before. Hans Kristensen 
and Robert Norris have noted that while India's nuclear arsenal, at some 
80-100 warheads, is smaller than that of Pakistan, it is set to expand. India 
is introducing new missiles and is inducting almost-impossible-to-target 
nuclear-powered submarines. The experts estimate that India already has a 
weapons-grade plutonium stockpile of 520 kilograms, enough for 100-130 
warheads, but will need more from the prototype fast-breeder reactor at 
Kalpakkam to meet the needs of its growing arsenal. 
India's strategic establishment seems certain it needs these weapons — but 
remains less than clear on just how and under what circumstances they 
might be used. 
The threat from the east is relatively predictable. For years now, India has 
periodically suffered from dragon-under-the-bed nightmares — the 
prospect that a more aggressively nationalist China, whose conventional 
forces are expanding and modernising dramatically, could initiate a war to 
settle the two countries' unresolved conflicts. China is bound by a no-first-
use pledge, but some experts fear India's conventional forces might be 
overwhelmed. It is improbable, though, that these losses would pose an 
existential threat to India. 
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