other outlying islands implies

while US commitments to defend the Japanese mainland may be clear, its studied silence on the Senkakus and other outlying islands implies that it may not intervene in a struggle over them, thus necessitating an indigenous military capability all the way up to and including a nuclear response. As a result, Ishiba, akin to Abe, claims that Japan must maintain its indigenous civilian nuclear infrastructure in order to maintain a latent nuclear weapon capability while encouraging the return of US nuclear weapons to the region ufabet