"Unleash Japan" Really?

Recently, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson in an interview with Paul Jay,* recommended withdrawing the US nuclear umbrella over Japan, and encouraging them to defend themselves:

(Wilkerson) So, what do you do? Well, if you’re going to be pragmatic and you’re in the Pentagon and you’re thinking about it, you’re going to unleash Japan. You’re going to say to Japan, we no longer guarantee you a nuclear security umbrella. In fact, we no longer feel like the security relationship with you is the way it should be. In other words, we think you should grow up. Think about what China would think about that, how that would change the power calculus in the region. Now, we’ve got an entirely different situation.

Now, China confronts a country that is capable of building a nuclear complex that could outstrip them in a matter of months and it’s no longer hemmed in, controlled, cajoled, kept right, by the United States of America. I’m going back to my conversations with Wang Yi and Cui Tiankai, and with Richard Haass, in 2001, when we did policy planning talks. Restraining Japan is looked at by Beijing, as a plus. Unleash Japan and see how the situation changes in Northeast Asia. This−

Paul Jay
But it makes it more dangerous. (emphasis added)

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson
Maybe, maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it makes a dangerous balance of power, or it creates a balance of power that isn’t there now. The balance is being destroyed by China. China is becoming more powerful than the United States in that regional context.

*The Threat of War (Nuclear) With China – Col. Lawrence Wilkerson By Paul Jay, August 11, 2021; https://theanalysis.news/the-threat-of-war-nuclear-with-china-col-lawrence-wilkerson/


"Unleashing Japan" is the most dangerous idea Wilkerson or any other US policy analyst has proposed in some time. This reveals his insight into Asian geopolitics is superficial. The "who lost China" movement in the fifties was accompanied by the "unleash Chiang Kai-shek" nonsense and US threats of nuclear war against China. So Col. Wilkerson criticizes past policy and then proposes a similar policy approach just as stupid. His recommendation, if adopted, would lead to a similar alignment of imperial Pacific powers in the early 20th Century that led to WWII: the UK, US, and Imperial Japan. Wilkerson's entire analysis during the Paul Jay interview, otherwise more or less sound, is deeply flawed by this one critical delusion. Worse still, Wilkerson proposes abandoning nuclear non-proliferation to restore a "balance of power" he claims no longer exists.

This is the same kind of grave lapse of judgement involved in committing the US to the Iraq war while he served as Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff. If the colonel thinks this is some sort of clever bluff to bring China to the nuclear weapons negotiating table, he is completely ignorant concerning Asian history. An "unleashed Japan" in the early 20th Century accelerated the rise of the communist party in China, whose entire raison d'etre was legitimized by its nationalist role defending the mainland against Japanese imperialism. Any current military action taken by Japan aimed toward China will probably precipitate a general war the scope of which hasn't been seen since WWII. Wilkerson's statement is made in the context of recent public statements by Japanese officials, particularly Taro Aso, encouraged by the US, committing Japan to the defense of Taiwan, a former Japanese colony. Seen in this light, any US adoption of Wilkerson's policy proposal would have dramatically catastrophic consequences for Japan and Taiwan. How could anyone in their right mind publicly propose taking such a dangerous and irresponsible course of action?