In the course of their talk of “military responses” to North Korea, South Korean officials are increasingly advocating launching a program to develop nuclear weapons of their own, saying it would give them “nuclear sovereignty.”
The US has expanded their nuclear umbrella over South Korea, but the hawkish advocates of the nuclear program say that President Trump’s “America-first” stance has them doubting he’d actually defend South Korea in the case of a conflict.
In reality, President Trump has been threatening to attack North Korea unilaterally for months, and likely would jump at the chance of using defending an ally as a pretext for such a war. There is no practical “need” for South Korea to have such a program.
Yet it’s an increasingly popular talking point for South Korea’s Conservative MPs, both because liberal President Moon Jae-in is opposed to such a program, and because polls have shown that months of talking up an imminent war has more voters in favor on the idea.
South Korea had a nuclear weapons program, but abandoned it in 1975, at the behest of the US. President Trump has in the past expressed comfort with the idea of allies like South Korea getting nukes, though this is contrary to long-time US policy on proliferation.
The value of nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula has been in question since the Korean War at any rate, because the terrain is hilly and would keep the blast radius limited.
LOL!! The Japanese wont have any of this.
My very first thought.
What does that mean? You don’t seem to know anything about East Asian geopolitics. Japan and South Korea both have latent nuclear programs, hidden in broad daylight. Japan is sitting on enough reprocessed plutonium for hundreds of bombs. Abe would welcome a nuclear SK so he could use the excuse to push Japan towards nuclear arms.
You dont seem to know your history bud. The De-Militarization Treaties post WW2 forbid Japan and Germany from producing nuclear weapons. Now if you truly believe that Japan has some secret nuclear weapons program that China and Russia dont know about then you are living in a dream world. There is no way China will allow Japan or SK to go nuclear. Hell will freeze over first.
Japan has enough plutonium and uranium for thousands of bombs plus a dual use space program with solid fuel rocket launchers. Ask yourself if Japan has a commercial need to reprocess, when they don’t even run any reactors to USE that reprocessed fuel. The only reason to sit on 9 tons of commercially unusable, reprocessed plutonium is bombs.
It would take mere months to assemble the parts into a nuclear ICBM. China, Russia and the US know about this. You seem to be the only one who doesn’t know about it. Google ‘Japan nuclear weapons’ and read the Wiki if you don’t believe me.
South Korea isn’t much behind. They could reprocess plutonium and laser enrich uranium if they choose to. They also have a solid fuel rocket developed for their ‘space’ program. Wouldn’t take long.
Also, China doesn’t dictate what Japan and SK can and cannot do. The US does, to an extent, but by no means is it absolute. Welcome to my dream world called reality.
To induce Ukraine to give up its nukes after the cold war, the US and the UK signed a guarantee protecting Ukraine’s territorial integrity from Russian encroachment. Question: why didn’t we stop Russia from seizing Crimea? Answer: Because Russia has nukes and ICBMs that could obliterate us.
Now imagine a future scenario but substitute NKorea for Russia and SKorea for Crimea. Would the US risk a nuclear exchange to protect SK from a NK invasion? Especially since it would not be a straight invasion, it would be a paramilitary, asymmetric action, like in Crimea. Crimean citizens would tell you the US would not intervene.
Or, if NK is belatedly found to have sold nuclear tipped ICBMs to Iran, Pakistan and the Taliban, what then? We have never attacked another nuclear armed nation simply for weapons proliferation. Play out the potential scenarios before writing an uninformed article like this.
Like in Crimea, if the majority of S Koreans in a region decide they would rather be part of N Korea, respect self-determination.
Oh really? The majority of Crimeans wanted to join Russia? I guess you surmise that from the Crimeans elections that Russia rigged.
NK will tamper with elections, blackmail, kidnap and assassinate SK politicians and business leaders with impunity and bully their way into controlling SK. It may decade a decade, but a nuclear ICBM-armed NK will dominate a nuclear-free SK.
I surmise that partly from the Ukrainian elections that the US tampered with. Since all parties involved are getting really good at dirty tricks, and are unwilling to mind their own business, and since the alternative seems to be open war, let the Koreans sort it out themselves – in other words let’s restore our commitment to minding our own business. The slippery slope to nuclear nightmare argument forgets that without the US getting serious about comprehensive disarmament, in a decade or two most every nation might well have their own nuclear ICBMs. Maybe when every country can hold humanity hostage, there will be some sort of equality among nations, and future generations will get serious about the big questions, if they survive.
Since you are not so concerned about stopping nuclear weapons proliferation, I hope you are not a hypocrite and advocate for zero gun control. If all neighbors on my street can annihilate one another with fully auto AR-15’s and TOW missiles, maybe we will finally have some damn peace and quiet.
I might take non-proliferation more seriously if it were applied evenly towards all countries, not as a joke when our allies do it. I do believe there should be some common-sense gun control. Maximum militarization is one strategy for population control and addressing every other problem, but I think we can be more creative and constructive than that. I see my position on guns and nukes as moderate and consistent… I want fewer of them out there and equal enforcement of basic, common-sense rules. But yes, I appreciate your wry analogy.
“Nuclear sovereignty”: Keyword in solving the Korean Peninsula’s impasse!
Nuclear sovereignty for Japan and South Korea, should be coupled with the US packing its military assets and moving back to America. This is the only viable, long term path to a peaceful future of the region.