Japan weighs emergency exception to its Three Non-Nuclear Principles
The Japanese government is considering stating an explicit emergency exception to its Three Non-Nuclear Principles in an updated National Security Strategy due by year-end, Kyodo News reports, citing a source familiar with the matter. The principles — not to possess, produce or permit the introduction of nuclear weapons — would likely remain on paper, while language could allow temporary entry of U.S. nuclear arms in a contingency, echoing a 2010 Diet position by then-Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's government frames the debate as reinforcing U.S. extended deterrence against China and North Korea; critics warn of regional backlash and of hollowing a taboo born of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Read at Kyodo News →
Themistocles and the Athenian naval law
What happened then
When a rich silver strike at Laurium promised a public windfall, Themistocles persuaded the Athenians to spend it on a large new fleet of triremes rather than on a cash handout to citizens. Plutarch and Herodotus present the choice as turning Athens from a land power toward the sea.
What caused it
Persian pressure after Marathon made the old reliance on hopites and walls look insufficient. Themistocles argued that without ships Athens could not evacuate, supply itself or meet an invasion at the waterline — a hard break with customary defense.
How it was resolved
The program survived political fights, including the ostracism of rivals; by 480 the fleet was decisive at Artemisium and Salamis. Athens accepted a more expensive, more “offensive-capable” posture in the name of survival under alliance with other Greeks.
How it turned out
The gamble worked militarily and made Athens a naval empire afterward — with all the glory and the later burdens that brought. It remains the archetype of a free people rewriting a sacred-seeming security custom because the strategic environment had changed.
What the philosophers say
In the First Philippic, Demosthenes berated Athenians who preferred comforting slogans to the hard means of deterrence. He urged them to stop pretending danger would wait while they debated, and to match words with ships, money and resolve against Philip of Macedon. The speech is not a blank check for militarism; it is an argument that free cities die when they cling to outdated habits and call the clinging principle. A nation revisiting a non-introduction taboo while keeping non-possession is walking Demosthenes' ground: asking whether the old formula still secures the people, or only soothes them.
Sources: Demosthenes, First Philippic (Wikisource, Vince tr.) · Perseus: Demosthenes, Philippics
Sources: Plutarch, Life of Themistocles (MIT Classics) · 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica: Themistocles (Wikisource) · Wikipedia: Themistocles
Further reading: Greek Lives by Plutarch (trans. Robin Waterfield)