Will Japan go nuclear?

With all of Japan's access to technology and its use of nuclear power to civilian purposes, it seems that Japan could build a nuclear bomb in nothing flat. But will they? Bryan Preston writes that unless China puts North Korea on a shorter leash, Japan will go nuclear.

Japan, on the other hand, has grown increasingly hawkish toward North Korea. In 1998, North Korea launched a No Dong missile over Japan's main island, prompting Tokyo to re-evaluate everything from its participation in the 1994 Agreed Framework -- the last multilateral deal inked to halt North Korea's nuclear programs, but which in actuality merely delayed that program by a year or two -- to Article 9 of its constitution which forbids Japan from becoming a military power again. Since then Pyongyang has admitted that during the 1970s and 1980s it abducted Japanese citizens and forced them to train intelligence agents and saboteurs who would infiltrate Japan should war break out. In 2003 Japan even embraced Bush style military pre-emption, signaling that it would meet North Korean missiles on the pad if it believed those missiles were aimed at Japan or any of its interests.