From a reader:

Dear Jonah,
I’ve always liked the nuclear Japan trump card for several reasons.
One, you know they’d make them cheaper, more reliable, and with more
options than the American nukes, so we’d have to catch up from the 30
year old technology in ours. Two, they’d turn them out like Toyotas and
Hondas, so any hopes of regional dominance by China would be dashed.
Three, if Japan went nuclear, how long till South Korea and Taiwan
followed (China’s worst nightmare)? Four, with all of the others, we
wouldn’t have to send a carrier group over every time China got it’s
nose out of joint over the existence of Taiwan and decided to act like
Asia’s BSD. In the prophetic words of the Derb, “I don’t see how you
can ever have enough nukes”.