Manning, Robert A

Introduction
One of the principal security issues of the post-Cold War era the disposition of plutonium. Decisions made by Japan over next decade—whether or not to implement long planned but delayed reprocessing and commercial breeder reactor programs— could be a critical factor shaping the global non-proliferation regime, security dynamics in Northeast Asia, and Japan’s global and regional role. Indeed, by simply making a decision now would likely result by default in the early 21st century in any case, Tokyo could lay the basis for a historic US-Japan initiative at both the global and regional level.
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