“We Cannot Entrust France’s Fate to Such an Uncertain Country”
— De Gaulle’s Realism and Japan’s Lost Right to Self-Defense —

Quoting Charles de Gaulle and contemporary analysis by Kan Ito, this piece questions the credibility of the U.S. nuclear umbrella and exposes the strategic reality behind denying Japan independent defensive capabilities.

March 13, 2017

The following is from the dialogue feature between Kan Ito and Yoshiaki Yano in the latest issue of Rekishitsū, mentioned in the previous chapter.
Ito:
President de Gaulle stated the following.
“The nuclear umbrella does not function in reality. If the United States and the Soviet Union were to fight a nuclear war to protect France, New York and Washington would be reduced to nuclear ashes. There is no American president foolish enough to carry out such an act.”
“The United States is, in the end, a country of mass democracy. No one knows who the American president will be four years from now. We cannot entrust France’s fate to such an uncertain country.”
Japan Is Not Allowed to Possess Nuclear Weapons
Ito:
This remains the same even today.
When the U.S. government kindly tells us, ‘Japan is safe because there is a nuclear umbrella,’ it is because they wish to permanently strip the Japanese people of their capacity for independent national defense.
The U.S. government has decided that “no matter how many nuclear weapons authoritarian states such as China and North Korea may possess, democratic Japan will not be allowed to have nuclear weapons.”
What a wonderful “values-based diplomacy” this is (wry smile).