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Abe Nobuyasu assess the possibility of creating an environment in Northeast Asia that could facilitate the withdrawal of U.S. extended nuclear deterrence to Japan and South Korea. Achieving such a goal mandates that several outstanding regional issues are addressed. These include: the territorial disputes over the Takeshima/Dokdo and Senkaku islands, the long-standing tensions across the Taiwan Strait, and North Korea’s continued nuclear weapons program. Were these issues to be addressed, Abe asserts that a regional security framework—such as a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone—may be possible. He warns, however, “for this Nuclear Weapons Free Zone to materialize, North Korea has to give up its nuclear program…the chances of its realization are equal to that of denuclearizing North Korea.”

Ambassador Nobuyasu Abe is currently the Director of the Center for the Promotion of Disarmament and Non-Proliferation at the Japan Institute of International Affairs. Ambassador Abe has served as Consul-General in Boston, as Ambassador to Austria and Saudi Arabia, and as a diplomat for the Japanese government, the U.N., and other international organizations in Washington, D.C., Geneva, Tel Aviv, New York, Manila, and Bern.

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

Shinichi Ogawa explores the probability of Japan heightening its conventional deterrence capabilities and the possible ways in which it may do so. His report first evaluates how Japan might augment its defensive capabilities (and invest in offensive weapons) were it’s military relationship and security guarantees with the United States to dissolve. He then assesses possible changes to Japan’s conventional military capabilities were the United States to maintain its ‘nuclear umbrella’ over Japan–and whether or not this arrangement could be compatible with a Northeast Asian Nuclear Weapons Free Zone.

Shinichi Ogawa is a visiting professor at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University.

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

Pan Zhenqiang states that both North Korea’s weapons program and US deterrence create an atmosphere of distrust and insecurity in Northeast Asia. Pan argues that establishing a regional NWFZ “has to be a multilateral, comprehensive, and cooperative process, aimed first and foremost at improving the security environment, and strengthening the political basis for a nuclear free arrangement that will take into consideration the security interests of all the countries concerned, and thus be acceptable to all of them.  There is no alternative to such a multilateral, comprehensive, and cooperative approach to resolving the DPRK nuclear crisis, and US [deterrence] as well, thereby effectively removing the two major obstacles to the NWFZ in Northeast Asia.”

Major General Pan Zhenqiang (retired) is deputy chairman of the China Foundation for International Studies, senior adviser to the China Reform Forum, and director of research at the Institute for Strategy and Management of the Central University of Finance and Economics in China.

This report was originally presented at the East Asia Nuclear Security workshop held on November 11, 2011 in Tokyo, Japan. All of the papers and presentations given at the workshop are available here, along with the full agenda, participant list and a workshop photo gallery.

Ken Jimbo assesses the dynamics of U.S. extended nuclear deterrence in Asia–especially on the Korean peninsula and in China–and how these relate to Japan’s “dynamic defense” policy adopted in the 2010 National Defense Program Guidelines. He states that “[s]ince the strategic landscape in Northeast Asia is increasingly complex in character, it is difficult to apply the concept of deterrence in a “one-size-fits-all” manner. For extended deterrence to succeed, the Japan-U.S. alliance needs continuous updates on the assessment of the distribution of powers and threats, then to apply tailored deterrence to the regional dynamic.”

Ken Jimbo is an Associate Professor at Keio University, Japan.

This report was originally presented at the East Asia Nuclear Security workshop held on November 11, 2011 in Tokyo, Japan. All of the papers and presentations given at the workshop are available here, along with the full agenda, participant list and a workshop photo gallery.