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Jeffrey Lewis argues that US allies such as Japan have been mislead by the manner in which past administrations have sought to emphasize the strength of their extended deterrence commitments by reference to particular weapons systems in that role. Lewis writes that “there is no specific commitment to use any of those nuclear weapons in defense of Japan – or any other ally.”

Rather, Lewis states, “it is time to be honest that the primary source of nuclear deterrence for US allies comes from the strategic triad of intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine launched ballistic missiles and bombers.” He concludes that “US nuclear weapons continue to play role, albeit a declining one, in meeting US security commitments. The US is committed to defending Japan, but the use of nuclear weapons neither necessary nor desirable in the current strategic environment.”

Jeffrey Lewis is an Adjunct Professor and Director of the East Asia Non-Proliferation Program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

A version of this report was originally presented at the East Asia Nuclear Security workshop held on November 11, 2011 in Tokyo, Japan.

Jon Mitchell states that “six months prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis…a parallel drama played out on the other side of the world as the U.S. secretly brought near-identical missiles to the ones the Russians stationed on Cuba to another small island — Okinawa. While the full facts of that deployment have never been officially disclosed, now for the first time three of the U.S. Air Force’s nuclear pioneers have broken the silence about Okinawa’s secret missiles, life within the bunkers and a military miscalculation of apocalyptic proportions — the targeting of unaligned China at a time when China-Soviet polemics were in full public view.”

Jon Mitchell is a Welsh-born writer based in Yokohama and represented by Curtis Brown Ltd., New York. He teaches at Tokyo Institute of Technology and is an Asia-Pacific Journal associate.