NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION WORLD MAP
Go here Just the briefest of overviews and while it is from Carnegie they must be using the official statistics for defense budgets rather than best estimates in real terms. It is a handy reference however.
GROWING SUPPORT FOR A NUCLEAR JAPAN
An unprecedented 20 % of the members of the Japanese Diet now support arming Japan with nuclear weapons. Formerly such a position would have been regarded as the political kiss of death in Japan which has seen ministers resign over public comments expressing nationalist or militarist sentiment. This sea change in Japanese opinion is a direct result of North Korea’s aggressive nuclear stance and particularly, the test firing of North Korea’s Taepodong missile over Japanese airspace. China in turn, has been moved by the spectre of Japanese rearmament from passive support of Pyongyang to active diplomatic alignment with the Bush administration demand for a nuclear-free Korean penninsula as an end result of negotiations. Excerpt:
“Nearly 20 percent of Japan’s lower house of parliament believe that Tokyo should consider becoming a nuclear weapons state if international developments push the country in that direction, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Aug. 22).
Japan is the only country to have been struck with nuclear weapons and the subject has traditionally been taboo. As North Korea has developed its nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, however, Japanese lawmakers have become more open to the idea of possessing a nuclear capability, according to AP.
The Mainichi newspaper conducted the poll before Sunday’s elections, and 83 out of 480 lawmakers said they were in favor of considering the idea.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi does not favor considering nuclear weapons and has said that he has no intention of altering Tokyo’s long-standing opposition to the idea. Of the 83 lawmakers, however, 63 were from Koizumi’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party.”
FRENCH PUSH FOR UNION WITH GERMANY
In a continuation of French policy to amass influence by leveraging the political and economic might of other states and promote regulatory Euro-statism as an alternative model to ” Anglo-American ” capitalism, the French are pushing for direct political union with Germany.
This is a high risk gambit for the French as it risks reawakening slumbering nationalist passions in both France and Germany;the latter of which is still recovering from reunification with East Germany while France saw proto-Fascist candidate Jean Marie LePen come in second in the last presidential election on the strength of an anti-EU vote. If successful however, such a merger would recreate a state that harkens backward to the brief empire of Charlemagne that once encompassed France, Germany, the low countries and northern Italy. Such a continental behemoth might prove too much for the British to stomach who have sought to play a moderating, balancing role in the EU vis-a-vis the more statist and anti-American Frenco-German position.
A GOOD EXAMPLE OF WHY ISLAMISM IS NOT THE SAME THING AS ISLAM
Perhaps some of the young, allegedly pious, barbarians in the Mideast will put away their Osama t-shirts ( but I’m not holding my breath)Go here. Islamism is a movement of political totalitarianism,fascism, anti-semitism and anti-Americanism in religious dress but it is not authentically religious in nature. Perhaps this explains the sympathetic tolerance for Islamism by Euro-intellectual leftists.
SHADES OF UNESCO
A host of corrupt, poorly governed and illiberal third world states are loudly demanding that the internet – a creation of the genius of American scientists that has expanded across the globe mostly through the effort of private individuals – be controlled by the UN as a ” public resource “. A degree of socialistic hubris that appears to be too much even for the French to stomach.
Let’s be honest – these third world kleptocrats and theo-fascists want UN control over the internet to keep their own people ignorant, malleable, powerless and poor while establishing opportunities to line their own pockets at the expense of the West. The good news is they are without any ability to garner such a concession without the United States stupidly giving it to them ( expect to read in a few years some knucklehead from State explaining off-record to the New York Times why we have to cave on this issue in order to secure the good opinion of some political boss in a Brazilian backwater or a fulminating imam in a Yemeni mosque ).
If ever there was a task for John Bolton to come out and scandalize elite beltway opinion with an ” in your face ” rejection this is it.
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