Article

2006-12-01 China-Japan-Koreas

Japan Says It Could Build a Nuclear Bomb

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Posted by Steve White 2006-12-01 00:00|| || Front Page|| [3 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Japan - next to India, the least-discussed, most important, positive strategic shift since 9/11 (from a different starting point, for different reasons). Aside from an AWOL political class and current Iraq hysteria, the larger picture has been positive for a long time.

Posted by Verlaine 2006-12-01 00:30|| 2006-12-01 00:30|| Front Page Top

#2 "but has no immediate plans to do so, the foreign minister said Thursday"

However, if the need arose, could probably have one ready for test in two weeks. Testing will be conducted over North Korea.

Posted by SpecOp35 2006-12-01 00:32|| 2006-12-01 00:32|| Front Page Top

#3 Heh heh heh. China, NorK, your responses, please?

Posted by gorb 2006-12-01 00:56|| 2006-12-01 00:56|| Front Page Top

#4 The Red Emperor strokes his lap dog and considers his response.

Posted by Slaviger Angomong7708 2006-12-01 01:59|| 2006-12-01 01:59|| Front Page Top

#5 The nearly silent hiss of a Samurai blade sliding from its scabbard.

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2006-12-01 02:53|| 2006-12-01 02:53|| Front Page Top

#6 They've also got a very nice solid-fuel space booster that's essentially a back-engineered Peacekeeper. Just the thing you'd put a nuke on if you had one, which Japan of course doesn't . . . yet.

Posted by Mike 2006-12-01 07:17|| 2006-12-01 07:17|| Front Page Top

#7 Maybe even less than two weeks. My guess is that most of the components are sitting on a shelf someplace.

Posted by Chuck Simmins">Chuck Simmins 2006-12-01 08:46|| http://northshorejournal.org]">[http://northshorejournal.org] 2006-12-01 08:46|| Front Page Top

#8 Bet they could build the Toyota of bombs: small, efficient, reliable, always works.

They could make some spares maybe for Canada. If they are sold as Toyota's we could make a good case for them.

Posted by Excalibur 2006-12-01 09:15|| 2006-12-01 09:15|| Front Page Top

#9 My guess is that most of the components are sitting on a shelf someplace.

More likely designs are in a CAD program locked in a safe just waiting to be loaded into the manufacturing robots. Longest time would be to make the plutonium cores, I'd say 6 months.

Posted by Steve 2006-12-01 09:49|| 2006-12-01 09:49|| Front Page Top

#10 And this time there would be an earth shattering kaboom

Posted by kelly 2006-12-01 10:53|| 2006-12-01 10:53|| Front Page Top

#11 I'd bet money that all the non-nuclear parts are manufactured, perhaps as many as 50 copies each, and some sub-assembly has taken place. All that would be needed would be the plutonium/u235 cores, depending on the type of bomb. I'd even be willing to bet the plutonium is "available". Thirty days maximum from the time a decision is made until the final product is ready for use. I'm sure China knows this, and I wouldn't be surprised if NKor knows this. I WOULD be surprised if either knew exactly WHERE that manufacturing and assembly would take place.

Posted by Old Patriot">Old Patriot 2006-12-01 13:33|| http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/]">[http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/] 2006-12-01 13:33|| Front Page Top

#12 Given that Japan also has some of the most powerful supercomputers in the entire world, I would say that it's safe to assume all of the critical subassemblies have gone through detailed dynamic performance verification modeling.

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2006-12-01 14:33|| 2006-12-01 14:33|| Front Page Top

#13 Japan has 45 000 kg of plutonium in stockpile.
You only need 2-3 kg with a sophisticated design.

While most of that is called reactor grade, (a) a sophisticated design can use reactor grade stuff and still have a reliable yield (b) a reactor core discharge produces a significant fraction that is actually weapons grade Pu, though not normally considered as such.

The solid boosters they developed for their H1 space vehicle would have a tremendous throw weight.

China, with its stocks of just 4000 kg of Pu, with its less accurate rocket tech has a lot to worry about... especially with Japan joining the US for the ABM program

Posted by john 2006-12-01 15:47|| 2006-12-01 15:47|| Front Page Top

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