Seoul
CNN
–
They have it, so we need it.
This is the basic argument for South Koreans who want their country to develop their own nuclear weapons. It is already about the need to protect ourselves from an aggressive northern neighbor Nuclear power in all but name And whose leader Kim Jong Un has made a promise “theoretical growth” in his arsenal.
The counterargument, which has long kept Seoul from pursuing the bomb, is among the possible consequences. Developing nuclear weapons would not only strain the country’s relationship with the United States, it would likely invite sanctions that could choke Seoul’s access to nuclear power. And that is to say nothing of the regional arms race It will almost inevitably provoke.
But the logic in which South Koreans find themselves seems to be changing.
Ten years ago, South Korea’s call for nuclear weapons was a fringe idea that garnered little serious coverage. Today it has become a mainstream discussion.
Recent opinion polls show that a majority of South Koreans support their country’s own nuclear weapons program; A string of prominent academics who once distanced themselves from this idea; Even President Yoon Suk Yeol expressed this idea.
So what has changed?
For supporters, Seoul’s development of its own nuclear weapons would finally answer the age-old question: “Would Washington risk San Francisco for Seoul in the event of a nuclear war?”
Currently, South Korea falls under Washington’s Extended Deterrence Strategy, which includes the nuclear umbrella, meaning the United States is obligated to come to its aid in the event of an attack.
For some, that’s reassurance enough. But the details of what form that “help” might take are not entirely clear. As that age-old question points out, faced with the prospect of a retaliatory nuclear attack on US soil, Washington would have a compelling reason to limit its involvement.
Probably better not to ask then. As Cheong Seong-chang of the Sejong Institute put it, “If South Korea has nuclear weapons, we can respond to a North Korean attack, so there is no reason for the US to get involved.”
South Koreans have other reasons to question their decades-old faith in US protection. The looming large among them Donald Trump. The former US president has made no secret of his desire to withdraw 28,500 US troops from South Korea, citing the costs involved, and questions why the US should defend the country. Given Trump has already announced his presidential bid for the 2024 election that is something that still plays heavily on people’s minds.
“The US is not seen as as reliable as it once was,” said Ankit Panda of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace. “Even if the Biden administration behaves like a traditional U.S. administration and sends all the right reassuring signals to South Korea… policymakers need to keep in mind that the U.S. will once again elect an administration that will be different. Procedure for South Korea.”
But the loss of trust goes beyond Trump.
More recently, President Yoon Suk-yeol expressed the idea of redeploying US strategic nuclear weapons to the peninsula or having South Korea’s “own nuclear capability” if the threat from North Korea intensified. Washington’s rejection of both ideas was clear. When Yun said this month that Seoul and Washington were discussing joint nuclear exercises, President Joe Biden was asked the same day if such talks were indeed underway. He simply replied, “No.”
After Yun’s comments, the press secretary of the US Department of Defense Brigadier Dr. Gen. Pat Ryder reiterated the U.S. commitment to the Extended Deterrence Strategy, saying that “to date, (the strategy) has worked and it has worked very well.”
In an interview with the Chosun Ilbo newspaper published on January 2, Yun said of the guarantee, “It is difficult to convince our people with it.”
But in another interview with The Wall Street Journal on the sidelines of Davos last week, Yun walked back those comments, saying, “I’m absolutely confident about the increased deterrence of the United States.”
An inconsistent message rarely calms the concerns of either side of the argument.
On Thursday, the US think-tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), suggested what might appear to be a middle ground – creating “a framework for joint nuclear planning” that could “help develop stronger bonds of trust among nuclear powers.” .” Allies in the current climate.”
It said the structure “could be similar to a NATO planning group for the use of nuclear weapons, where planning is done bilaterally and trilaterally (with Japan) and control rests with the United States.”
But CSIS has made clear that it does not support “the deployment of US strategic nuclear weapons on the peninsula or condoning South Korea’s purchase of its own nuclear weapons.”
Other experts too, such as Professor Jeffrey Lewis, nuclear non-proliferation expert at the Middlebury Institute of California, see joint planning and exercise as a “realistic alternative to nuclear weapons or nuclear sharing.”
For some in Yun’s conservative party that simply isn’t enough. They see a nuclear-weapon-free South Korea as threatened by a nuclear-armed North Korea and want nothing less than US nukes on the Korean peninsula.
They seem destined to be disappointed. Washington withdrew its strategic weapons from South Korea in 1991 after decades of deployment and shows no signs of reversing that decision.
Bruce Klingner of the Heritage Foundation said, “It makes no military sense to return US nuclear weapons to the peninsula.”
“They’re currently very difficult to find, very difficult to target weapons platforms and take weapons off of them and put them in a bunker in South Korea, which is a very tempting target for North Korea. What you’ve done is you. You’ve wasted your capability.”
That leaves many South Koreans with only one option — and some are losing patience.
Cheong, with South Korea recently acquiring a modified bomb, believes that the enhanced deterrence strategy has already reached its limits in dealing with North Korea and that only a nuclear-armed South Korea can avoid a war.
“Of course, North Korea does not want South Korea’s nuclear weapons. Now they can ignore the South Korean military,” Cheong said.
“But they must be nervous, (because if South Korea decides to pursue the bomb) they have more than 4,000 nuclear weapons-grade nuclear material.”
Still, it’s not just the fear of straining relations with the United States that keeps Seoul off such a course. If South Korea leaves the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the impact on its domestic nuclear power system will be swift and devastating.
“First, the Nuclear Suppliers Group will cut off South Korea’s fissile material, which is dependent on outside suppliers for all its fissile material. This could lead to international sanctions,” says Klingner.
Then there is Regional arms race This will likely provoke, as neighboring China has made it clear that it will not tolerate such a build-up.
“China is probably going to be unhappy and it will basically stop at nothing to prevent South Korea from going nuclear,” said Professor Andrei Lankov, a longtime North Korea expert at Kookmin University.
Given the potential fallout, Seoul may do better to take solace in the guarantees already provided by the United States.
“The 28,500 US troops on the peninsula have a very real tripwire effect. In the event of a cessation of hostilities between the two Koreas, it is simply inevitable for the United States not to become involved. We have skin in the game,” Panda said.
Finally, there are those who warn that even if South Korea acquires nuclear weapons, its problems will hardly disappear.
“So the interesting thing about nuclear weapons is that your weapons don’t offset their weapons,” said Lewis of the Middlebury Institute.
“Look at Israel. Israel is armed with nuclear weapons and Iran is afraid of getting a nuclear weapon, so Israel’s nuclear weapons do not in any fundamental way offset the threat they feel from Iran’s nuclear weapons.”
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