His latest book is The Okinawan Diaspora in Japan: Crossing the Borders Within (University of Hawaii Press, 2012). Steve Rabson is professor emeritus of East Asian studies, Brown University, and a Japan Focus associate. Marine airbase in the face of deep Okinawan opposition from the grassroots to the Governor. These include the village of Henoko, now also threatened by the planned construction of a U.S. Along with the risk of “reactivation” is the troubling possibility of serious environmental hazards at former nuclear sites in Okinawa. military presence in the country remains, weighed so heavily. This was one, and perhaps the most dangerous, way that the disproportionate burden carried by this small island prefecture, where two-thirds of the total U.S. bases were scattered throughout Japan, it was only in Okinawa that nuclear weapons were stored and warheads mounted on rockets.
“requires standby retention and activation in time of great emergency.” 26-35) that “Okinawa hosted 19 different types of nuclear weapons during the period 1954-1972.” The “secret agreement” accompanying the 1969 reversion pact between President Nixon and Prime Minister Sato identified nuclear weapons sites at “Kadena, Naha, Henoko, and Nike-Hercules units.” The agreement specified that the U.S.
Arkin, and William Burr reported in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (November/December, 1999, pp. (“Nike History: Eyewitness Accounts of Timothy Ryan, Carl Durling and Charles Rudicil,” retrieved November 11, 2012, posted at ) The rocket blast killed two technicians and injured one. The missile left the launcher, smashed through a fence, and plunged down to the beach below where the warhead bounced out and skidded across the water “like a stone,” but did not detonate. nuclear weapons came close to bringing nuclear holocaust.ĭescribing an earlier incident in Okinawa, veterans of the Nike-Hercules surface-to-air missile battery at Naha Airbase recalled an accidental firing during a circuits test in 1959, that was blamed on stray voltage. While much discussion has centered on the Cuban Missile Crisis spinning out of control into nuclear war, the latest revelations link 1950s Okinawa as yet another site in which the possession of U.S.
military’s vehement denials, a nuclear war could start by accident. But there is no reason to panic yet," Alperovitch wrote.Ota Masakatsu’s horrifying account of an erroneous order to launch nuclear missiles in Okinawa during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 raises the possibility that, despite the U.S. There are five levels, from DEFCON 1 to 5.ĭEFCON 5 is the lowest state of readiness, while DEFCON 1 is the maximum state of readiness, which means that nuclear war is starting or has already begun.Īccording to US Today, Russia also has its own version of DEFCON, although the levels of that system are unclear.ĭmitry Alperovitch, founder of The Alperovitch Institute for Cybersecurity Studies at Johns Hopkins University and former chief technology officer of the Cyber Security Group, said on Twitter that Russia has four levels of alert from nuclear war. What is DEFCON?ĭEFCON - Defense Ready Condition, is a system used by the Pentagon to mark the level of nuclear war threats facing the United States, which then determines readiness for a potential response. Already this morning, when the negotiations between Ukraine and Russia began, that level of danger was lowered by one and now it is "DEFCON 3", which has also been declared only a few times so far. It is a site of analysts from open sources, as well as those connected with the American army.Īs Jutarnji reminds us, the level of danger "one step away from the nuclear war" is actually the "DEFCON 2" level, and it has been declared only twice so far, during the Cuban crisis. officials, for security reasons, never publicly state the degree of danger the country is in, but that assessment was stated on the website "". However, as Jutarnji list reports, such information has not been officially confirmed, because U.S.
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