ABSTRACT
The US Biden administration is conducting its Nuclear Posture Review (NPR); the resulting report is expected to come out in early 2022. In this introductory essay to the special feature on the upcoming NPR and its implications for US Asian allies, the guest editor Nobuyasu Abe provides an overview of three articles.
Since the time of Clinton administration, at the beginning of every new US administration, a review of nuclear-weapons policy is conducted. In recent years, a Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) was conducted in 2009–2010 and 2017–2018, producing reports that laid out the basic US policy on the employment of nuclear weapons and the required nuclear weapons and forces to carry out the policy. Preceding the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, in a speech in Prague in April 2009, President Barack Obama declared his intention to seek a world without nuclear weapons and to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in the US security strategy. That was still a time when the self-image of the US as a preponderant superpower prevailed. Eight years later, Russian nuclear-force modernization had become a dominant issue and Russia resorted to nuclear saber rattling against the background of tensions with the West over Moscow’s intervention in Ukraine and annexation of Crimea. The 2018 Nuclear Posture Review therefore expanded the purpose of US nuclear deterrence and emphasized the need to modernize US nuclear forces.
The Biden administration is conducting its Nuclear Posture Review, and the report is expected to come out in early 2022. The content of the review, particularly as it relates to extended nuclear deterrence, has a significant bearing on the US allies in the Asia-Pacific – Japan, South Korea, Australia, and possibly Taiwan – that face Russian, Chinese, and North Korean nuclear threats.
Nobuyasu Abe, a former UN Under-Secretary-General for disarmament affairs, addresses the issues of reducing the role of nuclear weapons and nuclear no first use/sole purpose and the impact of those issues on Japan. In that context, he analyzes the dependability of US extended nuclear deterrence from the Asian allies’ point of view as well as the implications of the US nuclear modernization. He also address a specific issue that is sensitive for the Japanese public – the potential deployment in Japan of the types of missiles that had been prohibited by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. There is a strong interest in Japan in the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW); thus, the way the new Nuclear Posture Review handles the issue will be of interest to the Japanese public.
A unique question in Asia is that of Taiwan, which has a delicate legal status vis-à-vis China. It is also concerned about the role of US extended nuclear deterrence. Both Abe and Gregory Kulacki, a renowned expert on China, address the question. Kulacki, who is also an expert on arms control and disarmament, addresses the issue of nuclear-deterrence strategy in the US-Japan alliance. He sees it to be failing and proposes a number of ways to fix it.
Prof. Nobumasa Akiyama presents a more realistic view of the nuclear no-first-use/sole-purpose declaration and the TPNW. In his view the adoption of a declaratory policy is not likely to lead to progress in nuclear disarmament in the security environment that exists in Northeast Asia today. For the sake of reducing nuclear risks and threats under the current circumstances, he believes that establishing a communication mechanism for crisis management and a mechanism to discuss issues of common interest to opposing sides, such as the impact of emerging technologies, is more important than focusing on declaratory policies. That would then create an environment for declaratory policies to work for threat reduction.
Akiyama’s view seems to be close to those that have been taken by the conservative governments of Prime Ministers Shinzo Abe and Yoshihide Suga. The new administration of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida initially retained Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi, implying that he would maintain the basic foreign and defense policies of the previous administration. Kishida, however, maintains a strong interest in nuclear issues, as he comes from the electoral district that contains the City of Hiroshima, and it was he who set Japan’s policy of working to bridge the gap between the pro-TPNW camp and anti-TPNW camp. In his first press conference, he declared that working for a world without nuclear weapons is his lifetime task. How the personal interest of the very gentle Kishida plays out with the conservative realist position of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party remains to be seen.
When the new NPR is issued, there will be reactions and critiques. So the J-PAND library shelf of “The Biden NPR: Implications for US Asian Allies and Partners” will be kept open for further contribution of articles and commentaries. They would all be welcome.
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Nobuyasu Abe
Nobuyasu Abe is a former UN Under-Secretary-General for disarmament affairs (2003-06). He served as a commissioner of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission (2014-17), director of the Center for the Promotion of Disarmament and Nonproliferation at the Japan Institute of International Affairs (2008-2014), Japanese ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency and Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (1999-2001), director-general for arms control and science affairs in the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1997-99). He also served as a member of the advisory board to the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (2008-09) and a senior fellow with the Project on Managing the Atom at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center (2018-19). He currently is a senior adviser to the Council on Strategic Risks.