Does South Korea Want Nuclear Weapons?

US President Donald Trump meets Kim Jong-un at the Korean Demilitarized Zone, June 30, 2019. Credit: Public Domain.

Byong-Chul Lee, Bulletin Of The Atomic Scientists: Don’t be surprised when South Korea wants nuclear weapons

There are two major variables that factor into South Korea’s calculus on starting a nuclear weapons program: the feasibility of North Korea abandoning its nuclear weapons voluntarily, and the guarantee of America’s extended deterrence in the event of the nuclear crisis on the peninsula. Both are trending in the wrong direction.

North Korea’s intermittent nuclear threats have increasingly weighed on the minds of the broader public in South Korea, and South Koreans have started to suspect that there’s no ray of hope left for the complete denuclearization of North Korea. “Denuclearization is the dying wish of Kim Il-sung, the founder of the regime,” South Koreans have heard countless North Koreans say. But the North’s assertion that the founder’s dying wish is still operative is at best disingenuous and at worst an outright lie. In hindsight, denuclearization was dead on arrival.

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WNU Editor: South Korea has the resources and means to develop and build nuclear weapons. But as long as the US "nuclear umbrella" covers them, there is no public or political will to do so. But in the event that North Korea continues with their nuclear program, and the U.S. does abandon its nuclear protection agreements and understandings with South Korea, the South Korean push to develop their own program will be overwhelming. And if that does happen, do not be surprise if they even test one.

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