Ach! I thought for a moment that Thomas Wictor had re-emerged...but then you mention 12-16 months ago. (slump)
Good memory for detail! Point 1 is very interesting, and potentially more important that U.S. involvement. Okay on point 2, but I would suspect these might be anti-shipping missiles. Point 3 may be a mixed blessing, considering the headaches that come with F-35s (got your final software, yet?). Point 4 is very interesting, indeed. Point 5 is an easy opinion to popularize but, having had a nuclear clearance, I doubt there are any "open secrets." The only bomb they could make with no confirmatory testing would be a uranium-gun bomb, for which they would need to have a supply of highly-enriched uranium. This is very hard to come by. We had to build the Oak Ridge facility specifically for uranium enrichment to bomb-grade, ~90% U-235. This kind of facility cannot be easily hidden (or the centrifuge approach, similar story). So, color me skeptical. Such a project would also be in violation of the Japanese constitution, so I have doubts that it could ever have been politically tenable up to the present.
Ach! I thought for a moment that Thomas Wictor had re-emerged...but then you mention 12-16 months ago. (slump)
Good memory for detail! Point 1 is very interesting, and potentially more important that U.S. involvement. Okay on point 2, but I would suspect these might be anti-shipping missiles. Point 3 may be a mixed blessing, considering the headaches that come with F-35s (got your final software, yet?). Point 4 is very interesting, indeed. Point 5 is an easy opinion to popularize but, having had a nuclear clearance, I doubt there are any "open secrets." The only bomb they could make with no confirmatory testing would be a uranium-gun bomb, for which they would need to have a supply of highly-enriched uranium. This is very hard to come by. We had to build the Oak Ridge facility specifically for uranium enrichment to bomb-grade, ~90% U-235. This kind of facility cannot be easily hidden (or the centrifuge approach, similar story). So, color me skeptical. Such a project would also be in violation of the Japanese constitution, so I have doubts that it could ever have been politically tenable up to the present.