Nuclear disarmament is a laudable idea, but in the here and now misses the point. Most of us are worried not so much about nukes per se (I don’t think anyone has insomnia over the French or British arsenal), as the types of governments who have them. Personally, I trust the democracy of India or Israel in a way I don’t trust those in Pakistan or Iran. A nuclear and democratic Japan is perhaps a bad idea, but still not as frightening in the way a nuclear North Korea or even China would be. Democratization advocacy is now supposed to be discredited, but an exclusive club of major nuclear democracies is still not as scary as one of tyrannical conventional powers armed to the teeth (cf. the 70 million who perished in WWI and WWII). Obama’s soaring rhetoric may be inspirational, but very soon Japan (that could turn out about 4000 nukes — that really would work — in about the time they could produce the same number of Hondas) will start calculating what are the chances that a multipolar, UNish America simply will not provide leadership to deal with North Korea’s soon to be nuclear-tipped missile arsenal — and thus may make the resultant unilateral adjustments.