Here is the link to the Japanese language Sankei Shimbun story about a Japanese government study on developing nuclear weapons. The story doesn’t have the document, but reproduces the “essence” in bullet points: 一、小型核弾頭試作には最低でも３～５年、２０００億～３０００億円かかる 一、核原料製造のためウラン濃縮工場拡張は非現実的。軽水炉使用済み燃料再処理をしても不可能 一、黒鉛減速炉によるプルトニウム抽出が一番の近道 I gather (from a friendly translation) that this boils down to three points: 一 To trial manufacture a miniaturized …
How long would it take Japan?
by | 2006-12-26 | 8 Comments
I’ve usually taken it as common wisdom that Japan, if it suddenly wanted to, could build a nuclear bomb in about 6 months. Articles and experts have quoted this figure. However, there are reports quoting the Japanese newspaper Sankei of an internal Japanese report that puts the estimate closer to 3-5 years. The Japanese government …
Merry Christmas and other Winter Holidays
by | 2006-12-25 | No Comments
A couple of months ago, Jane blogged about a computer game called DEFCON, which she observed was probably “more fun” than the various nonviolent strategy games making a big deal in our field. Spencer Yip at Siliconera notes we can have both, at least during the holiday season: DEFCON is one of those disturbingly dark …
More Iran and more Israeli bunkers
by | 2006-12-24 | 2 Comments
We are on a whole Iran kick here so I felt that I should get in on the fun. First, check out this article, A Win-Win U.S. Strategy for Dealing with Iran in the current issue of Washington Quarterly. The authors think that the US should, peacefully, promote democracy to deal with Iran’s nuclear ambitions: …
