The Japanese public has implicitly condoned nuclear weapons for the past 50 years by placing themselves under the protection of America's nuclear deterrent. Kyuma's statement was not a moral evaluation of nuclear weapons, but a simple pragmatic assessment that, given the historical political circumstances and military strategic thinking, their first use was all but inevitable. I would suggest that much of the vocal outrage comes not from moral opposition to nuclear weapons, but from indignation at what was interpreted by some as breaking with the accepted national narrative of Japan-as-victim.
andrew murphy
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