Opinion

Target, Japan

By Douglas Lummis

During his trip to China in June, U.S. President Bill Clinton reached an agreement with China's President Jiang Zemin to stop targeting each other's country with nuclear missiles.

This sounds like a step toward peace, but think about it: What does "to stop targeting" mean? It does not mean that the missiles will be destroyed, nor that they will be reprogrammed so they will be forever incapable of flying to the other country. Does it mean they won't be aimed at the other country? But missiles are always aimed straight up, and are directed to their targets after they are fired. I suppose detargeting means altering the missiles' programs so that it will take more than pushing a single button to send them to the United States or to China. According to one U.S. news commentator, detargeting is reversible within 15 minutes.

U.S. officials say that while the agreement has little meaning militarily, it is symbolic. What does it symbolize?

In particular, one wonders what it symbolizes for Japan, for Japan has been left out. The agreement stipulates that the United States and China will detarget their nuclear missiles from each other's mainland only. China has made no promise to detarget U.S. bases outside the U.S. mainland, including those in Japan.

Did President Clinton forget about Japan? Did he judge Japan not important enough to be included in the agreement?

On July 19 newspapers reported that U.S. government officials, noticing the oversight, had attempted to do some damage control. They called in reporters from the Japanese press and assured them that Japan had nothing to worry about. They said that while the Chinese do have nuclear missiles targeted at Japan and even bases whose major function is to target Japan, this does not mean China intends to attack Japan. "There is no reason to interpret China's nuclear ability as a threat," a U.S. official said (Asahi Evening News, July 19-20).

Doesn't this make nonsense of the whole logic of nuclear deterrence? Not so, the official stressed: Japan is still "protected" under the U.S. nuclear umbrella.

Then doesn't this make nonsense of the detargeting agreement? Not so, the officials said, for its meaning (as I mentioned above) is "symbolic."

Which brings us back to the beginning, what does it symbolize? For the U.S. government, avoiding nuclear destruction primarily means avoiding it within U.S. territory, and only secondarily avoiding it in other countries like Japan. I trust no one will find this surprising. This incident also teaches us something about the U.S. bases in Japan. It is these bases, as the U.S. officials pointed out, that are the targets of China's nuclear missiles. The Japanese government says the bases are here to protect you. Think of them rather as giant bull's-eyes written on the ground, all across the country. Think particularly of Okinawa; the U.S. bases there provide the only reason for war to come again to that peaceful island.

These are some of the "symbolic" lessons of the detargeting agreement.

Shukan ST: Sept. 11, 1998

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