SEOUL, September 03 (AJP) - U.S. President Donald Trump wants to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and ordered scale-back in U.S.-South Korea military drills that anger Pyongyang and cost Washington heavily, reigniting a long-running question in Seoul: Should South Korea arm itself with nuclear weapons?
Once taboo, the idea is gaining broader public acceptance.
Sixty-five percent of South Koreans support the country possessing nuclear weapons, while 30 percent oppose it, according to the latest Gallup Korea survey. Support was particularly strong among conservative voters but extended well beyond the political right.
AJP asked diplomatic and security experts, along with lawmakers from across South Korea's political spectrum, whether the U.S. nuclear umbrella remains credible, whether an independent arsenal would actually make the country safer and what alternatives lie between dependence on Washington and building the bomb.
Is the U.S. nuclear umbrella still credible?
“One of the key arguments against South Korean proliferation was that the U.S. commitment to South Korea makes it unnecessary,” Eric Grynaviski, professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University, said. “As the Trump administration casts doubt on those commitments, the case for nuclear weapons in South Korea becomes stronger.”
But Grynaviski said the American commitment remains stronger than it may appear.
South Korea itself functions as a “trip wire,” he said, because U.S. troops are stationed in the country and large numbers of American civilians visit every year. A major North Korean attack would therefore almost certainly kill Americans and generate overwhelming domestic pressure on any U.S. administration to respond.
Bhubhindar Singh, professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University, likewise said U.S. extended deterrence remains credible, even though South Koreans have repeatedly been reminded that the guarantee is no longer necessarily “ironclad” and ultimately depends on the president.
“The current Trump administration is highly transactional and seems to defer more to authoritarian strongmen rather than democratic allies,” Brad Williams, professor in the Department of Public and International Affairs at City University of Hong Kong, said.
Still, Williams said support for the alliance across the broader U.S. military and political establishment would make it difficult for even the Trump administration to remain on the sidelines if North Korea attacked South Korea.
Ja Ian Chong, professor of political science at the National University of Singapore, said the problem runs deeper than the reduction of any particular military exercise or movement of American weapons.
U.S. forces and resources have shifted before, he said. What has changed is that uncertainty over Washington's commitment is now compounded by questions about its military capacity to respond to simultaneous crises.
“Whereas U.S. capability was less uncertain before even if there were debates about commitment, now the discussion about the U.S. position is about both commitment and capability,” Chong said.
Officially, Washington's extended-deterrence policy toward South Korea has not changed, Chong noted. But inconsistency elsewhere in U.S. foreign policy means even truthful assurances can now be discounted.
“There probably needs to be more consistency in U.S. positions across the board for assurance signals to be more credible,” he said.
Rep. Boo Seung-chan of the Democratic Party, a former Air Force officer, took a similar view from Seoul.
“Emotionally, I support possessing nuclear weapons, but rationally and from the standpoint of the national interest, I do not,” Boo said.
He argued that the U.S. nuclear umbrella has so far performed well under the three traditional requirements of deterrence — capability, credibility and communication. That, he said, helps explain why other U.S. allies protected by the American nuclear umbrella have not rushed to build their own weapons.
“I believe the argument for independent nuclear armament is just a political agenda,” Boo said. “The reason South Korea did not pursue independent nuclear armament under the Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye governments was that national policy decisions are made on the basis of the national interest, not emotion.”
Would a South Korean bomb actually make the country safer?
Supporters of nuclear armament argue that an independent arsenal would eliminate the ultimate uncertainty inherent in extended deterrence: Seoul would no longer have to depend on another country's president to authorize nuclear retaliation.
“Nuclear weapons will strengthen the Republic of Korea’s national security,” Singh said.
While South Korea would face international backlash, Singh said he did not expect it to be as severe as the reaction to India and Pakistan becoming nuclear powers, arguing that North Korea's nuclear behavior has given Seoul a degree of legitimacy for considering the option.
Rep. Park Choong-kwon of the People Power Party was more unequivocal.
“South Korea needs its own nuclear weapons,” Park said.
Whenever Washington raises changes to the role of U.S. Forces Korea, restrictions on its role in defending against North Korea or reductions in joint exercises, Seoul should be prepared to raise nuclear armament in response, he added.
Rep. Park Sun-won of the Democratic Party took a more conditional view.
“If South Korea could acquire its own nuclear weapons without any adverse consequences or burdens, I think that would be a good thing,” Park said. “The problem is that South Korea’s nuclear armament conflicts with the South Korea-U.S. alliance.”
Rep. Sung Il-jong of the PPP, a former chair of the National Assembly's Defense Committee, went further.
“If credible U.S. nuclear sharing is impossible, South Korea should consider developing independent nuclear weapons as a matter of national survival,” Sung said.
Others see the calculation very differently.
“South Korea does not need independent nuclear weapons, and they would not serve the national interest,” Rep. Jin Seong-joon of the DP, chair of the National Assembly's Defense Committee, said.
“South Korea is already under the U.S. nuclear umbrella and can respond to North Korea’s nuclear threat through the U.S. extended deterrence strategy, so there is no reason for South Korea to pursue its own nuclear weapons,” Jin said.
“The moment South Korea moves to acquire nuclear weapons, it will face international sanctions and pressure,” he said. “A chain reaction of nuclear arms competition involving neighboring countries such as Japan and Taiwan would begin, making the security environment even more unstable.”
Rep. Kim Gunn of the PPP said it was natural for South Koreans to demand their own nuclear deterrent as North Korea deploys tactical nuclear weapons and threatens preemptive nuclear use.
Such calls, he said, reflect a public demand for a more certain answer to North Korea's nuclear threat.
“Nuclear armament could legitimize and perpetuate North Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons, while South Korea would violate the international norm of nuclear nonproliferation and could face sanctions from the international community,” Kim said.
“Because we can strengthen deterrence through stronger alliance-based extended deterrence and by enhancing South Korea’s own capabilities, including nuclear-powered submarines and the three-axis system, we should be cautious about adopting independent nuclear armament as a policy option,” he added.
Grynaviski also warned that a bomb could paradoxically weaken South Korea's strategic position.
If Washington concluded that a nuclear-armed South Korea could handle its own security, it could accelerate reductions in U.S. forces and eventually remove one of the central pillars of the alliance, he said.
Nuclearization could also encourage military buildups by neighboring countries and complicate South Korea's relations with them.
Joseph Yi, professor of political science at Hanyang University, said an independent arsenal is, at least for now, more likely to weaken than strengthen South Korea's overall security.
“The argument is simple: if the ally looks unreliable, acquire the ultimate weapon yourself,” Yi said. “That is a Trump-style answer to a complicated security problem.”
“Nuclear weapons do not remove insecurity; they replace one set of risks with another,” he added.
The NPT question: Could South Korea legally walk away?
Any decision to build nuclear weapons would immediately collide with South Korea's obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
But leaving the treaty is not legally impossible.
Article X explicitly recognizes a party's sovereign right to withdraw if extraordinary events connected to the treaty have endangered its “supreme interests.”
The treaty requires three months' notice to the other parties and the U.N. Security Council, accompanied by an explanation of those extraordinary events. Its key language says a party has “the right to withdraw from the Treaty” when extraordinary events have jeopardized its supreme interests.
Yoo Seong-min, a former Defense Committee chair and conservative presidential candidate in 2017, said that clause has become directly relevant to South Korea.
“Reading Article X of the NPT, it almost feels as if it was written for today’s Republic of Korea,” Yoo said. “South Korea, which lives with North Korean nuclear weapons hanging over its head, should continue to emphasize both domestically and internationally that its withdrawal from the NPT would be justified under Article X,” he said.
Yoo linked the nuclear issue to what he sees as a deeper deficit of trust in the alliance.
“What damages the South Korea-U.S. alliance is not the argument for nuclear armament but unstable mutual trust,” Yoo said.
He argued that the level of trust between South Korea and the United States — countries that fought alongside each other in the Korean and Vietnam wars — is weaker than the trust Washington has built with Japan despite the two having fought each other in World War II.
Yoo pointed to differences between the U.S.-South Korea and U.S.-Japan civil nuclear agreements as another manifestation of that gap.
“Washington may harbor suspicions that South Korea could someday reunify with North Korea or side with China,” Yoo said.
“I believe those suspicions have been further amplified by the pro-North Korean and pro-China tendencies of the left-wing governments of Kim Dae-jung, Roh Moo-hyun, Moon Jae-in and Lee Jae Myung since Kim took office in 1998,” he said. “The absence of comparable pro-North Korean or pro-China tendencies in Japanese politics may be one reason for the difference in the level of trust.”
For Boo, however, the decisive obstacle is not whether withdrawal is technically permitted but whether South Korea could absorb what followed.
The country depends heavily on exports, he said, making it uncertain whether it could withstand the economic sanctions and diplomatic costs that could accompany NPT withdrawal and nuclear weapons development.
Chong said international rules themselves are also becoming harder to evaluate in a world where major powers increasingly erode international law and institutions.
The experiences of Ukraine, Iraq, Iran and Libya can be read as evidence that states without nuclear weapons may find themselves more vulnerable, he said.
Nuclear sharing, tactical weapons — or a latent nuclear capability?
Between the existing U.S. nuclear umbrella and an independent South Korean bomb lies a spectrum of intermediate options.
They include stronger joint nuclear planning, NATO-style nuclear sharing, redeployment of U.S. nuclear weapons, expanded South Korean enrichment and reprocessing capabilities and stronger conventional deterrence.
Yoo has advocated nuclear sharing for nearly a decade.
“I adopted NATO-style nuclear sharing as a presidential campaign pledge in 2017, and my position is that we should pursue NATO-style nuclear sharing until independent nuclear armament becomes possible,” Yoo said.
His 2017 presidential platform called for turning U.S. nuclear forces relevant to the Korean Peninsula into what he described as joint South Korean-U.S. assets.
The proposal included nuclear information sharing, joint decision-making in a contingency, joint command-and-control arrangements, the use of South Korean assets for nuclear delivery missions, joint nuclear operational planning and combined nuclear exercises and training.
“I will demand from the United States, immediately through a summit and defense and foreign ministers’ meetings, a level far closer than cooperation between the United States and NATO,” Yoo said when unveiling the plan on April 5, 2017.
Yoo now argues that even NATO's model may no longer be sufficient for the Korean Peninsula.
“NATO uses a system in which gravity bombs are carried and dropped by aircraft, but South Korea would need a tactical nuclear missile system,” Yoo said.
Under nuclear sharing, he noted, the weapons would still remain under American control.
“Even then, the nuclear weapons would be placed under U.S. control, and we cannot know when the United States might change its mind,” Yoo said.
Boo favored a different form of hedging.
Instead of immediately possessing nuclear weapons, South Korea should consider seeking rights to enrich uranium and reprocess spent nuclear fuel so that it could acquire the capability to manufacture nuclear weapons within a short period if the strategic environment deteriorated, he said.
Williams favored strengthening conventional deterrence while securing explicit assurances of continued U.S. extended nuclear deterrence from supportive civilian and military officials in Washington.
Given the Korean Peninsula's geography, he argued, nuclear weapons are particularly problematic because North Korean forces and South Korean territory are in such close proximity.
Yi favored exhausting alliance-based options before crossing the nuclear threshold.
Seoul and Washington can deepen nuclear planning, improve conventional deterrence and missile defense, expand intelligence and surveillance capabilities and strengthen rapid reinforcement arrangements, while also discussing nuclear sharing, he said.
If the security environment deteriorates so dramatically that South Korean nuclear weapons become necessary, the decision should still be coordinated with Washington and closely with Tokyo rather than undertaken unilaterally, Yi said.
AJP Takeaways
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South Korea’s nuclear weapons debate is gaining momentum as confidence in U.S. extended deterrence faces renewed scrutiny. President Donald Trump’s push to scale back U.S.-South Korea military exercises and reengage North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has intensified questions over whether Seoul can continue relying on Washington’s nuclear umbrella.
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Public support for an independent South Korean nuclear arsenal has risen sharply, but experts and lawmakers remain divided over whether nuclear weapons would actually make the country safer. A Gallup Korea survey found 65 percent support for possessing nuclear weapons, while critics warn that nuclearization could weaken the U.S.-South Korea alliance, trigger sanctions and accelerate a regional arms race involving Japan and Taiwan.
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South Korea could legally invoke Article X of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to withdraw, but the economic and diplomatic consequences could be severe. The NPT allows withdrawal when extraordinary events jeopardize a country’s “supreme interests,” while opponents of nuclear armament warn that export-dependent South Korea could struggle to absorb international sanctions and diplomatic isolation.
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NATO-style nuclear sharing, U.S. tactical nuclear weapons and a South Korean latent nuclear capability are emerging as alternatives to immediately building a bomb. Proposals range from deeper South Korea-U.S. nuclear planning and missile defense to uranium enrichment and spent-fuel reprocessing rights that could give Seoul the ability to develop nuclear weapons rapidly if its security environment deteriorates.
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