I'm also in Japan, and I have a pretty serious go-bag for this kind of thing. It's because of political tensions for me; we're in spitting distance of North Korea.
You certainly know something that nobody else knows.
Look, almost everyone gets the situation with North Korea wrong. NK has exactly one deterrent from being invaded, and that is a ton of very boring, very conventional artillery that is within firing distance of Seoul.
In the case of NK being invaded, they would immediately start shelling Seoul and trying to reduce it to rubble.
If you start evacuating Seoul, NK will assume they're going to be invaded, and start shelling it.
In the improbable case that NK would start something, they would start by shelling Seoul.
All of these scenarios end with NK being reduced to rubble by the overwhelmingly superior force of South Korea + Japan + USA. That's the deterrent we have against them.
The nuclear missiles that NK is barking about is not a real threat. Everyone is watching NK 24/7,they cannot launch anything undetected. If something is detected, then South Korea, Japan, and the US will compete with each other about who can shoot the shit down first. And they will shoot the shit down. And after they've shot the shit down, they will invade NK to reduce it to rubble so as not to have to go through that again, at which point NK will start shelling Seoul, which sucks, but at that point it's an acceptable loss.
Every single scenario ends with NK reduced to rubble. They know this. They have zero reason to move the status quo. Instead, the real reason for them barking about their nuclear capabilities is to get more leverage in sanction discussions. And everyone goes through with this dog-and-pony show, because we can't openly state the exact capabilities of the anti-missile defense systems that are in place around NK.
On the other hand, I think everyone except possibly Kim and his minions wants peace and stability on the Korean peninsula. The Chinese certainly do, and I think even the Russians, though they have less at stake, would not want to see war break out — certainly not nuclear war, which would endanger Vladivostok. What I don't know is how badly Kim wants to conquer South Korea. He likes to argue that his nukes are for defensive purposes, and that's not unreasonable under the circumstances, but the problem is that they can be used offensively as well. What I would like to see is a peace treaty that obliges not just us and Japan but also China and Russia to participate in obliterating North Korea should they attack South Korea or anyone else.
That sounds like a pipe dream, but consider this. We could provide South Korea with nukes. Yes, it would be in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. (I wouldn't suggest abrogating the treaty altogether, but it has clearly failed its purpose in this instance. A case can be made for restoring the regional balance of power.) We shouldn't bluff, but a credible threat to nuclear-arm South Korea might bring China and even Russia to the table.
But you're right. We don't really want to put nukes under the control of the South Korean government. Convincing the Chinese and Russians that yes, we really will do that if we see no alternative, wouldn't be easy.
The situation you see playing out in Europe, where Trump’s affinity for Russia puts NATO’s integrity in question is an example of why a smaller party like South Korea would want an independent deterrent.
I don't think the US can convince anyone that they would really unconditionally give nukes to SK to do whatever they wanted with them.
The entire incident is now known as "Cuban Missile Crisis", although it started with the great idea of placing Jupiter missiles in Italy and Turkey against USSR, continued with USSR placing missiles against USA in Cuba and ended with a single officer on a Soviet submarine, out of three required, objecting to launching a nuclear torpedo while being attacked from a USA ship above. Seeing how easy it is to spark a full war (e.g. Gleiwitz, Gulf of Tonkin), the Doomsday clock had its leap second that day.
Stationing nukes in the SK, close to both China and Russia would be such a major shift in power balance, that I would really like to see the crazyman who would go to China/Russia to even mention that.
http://www.newsweek.com/north-korea-nuclear-weapons-only-tar...
Sorry Canadians, I didn’t mean to lump you in with your southern neighbors.
You just aren't reading/listening to Japanese people on the subject.
No one is freaking out, but we're all tense at more or less the same level, as per our individual personalities.
In the US, we've completely gone down the way of sucking on the fear teat vs the actual dangers in our reality (cars, guns, heart disease, etc) and pay a pretty penny for it, whether security theater at the airport or our current political environment.