The United States has plenty of allies around the world, but the alliance with South Korea is at the top of the heap. President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and everyone in between have referred to the U.S.-South Korea alliance as "iron clad," a phrase meant to express a sense of resolve and sure-footedness in one of the world's most militarized regions. The words are backed up by the 28,000 U.S. troops deployed on South Korean soil, constant joint military exercises between Washington and Seoul, and frequent warnings to North Korea that any attack on the South would result in its utter devastation.
The South Koreans appreciate the partnership. But as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un continues to test long-range missiles and launches military reconnaissance satellites into orbit, the South Korean political establishment is getting frustrated and restless.
The frustration is understandable. Despite North Korea being subjected to one of the most stringent U.N. sanctions regimes, Kim Jong Un is proceeding as if there weren't any economic restrictions at all. The North Koreans have tested at least 36 missiles so far in 2023; last year, the number of launches reached at least 95. Kim Jong Un has ordered his scientists and engineers to treat the development of solid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) as a top priority. The North Koreans are well on their way, having tested solid-fueled ICBMs in April and July, the latter of which traveled more than 600 miles before splashing into the Sea of Japan.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol would like all of this to stop. As a presidential candidate, Yoon ran on a platform of getting far tougher on North Korea than his predecessor, Moon Jae-in, whose five-year term included several inter-Korean summits. Moon's greatest achievement was arguably the September 2018 inter-Korean military accord, an agreement that sought to eliminate the possibility of the two Koreas stumbling into war by banning surveillance flights and live-fire drills near the Demilitarized Zone.
Yoon, though, never bought into the concept of rapprochement. On the campaign trail, he labeled Moon's policy as appeasement, blasting the entire process as a failure that didn't bring the peace its architects promised. After Moon in October criticized the current approach toward the North, Yoon responded hours later by accusing Moon (without naming him) of leaving South Korea exposed in pursuit of a "fake peace."
North Korea's behavior isn't helping to cool down tensions on the Korean Peninsula. If anything, Yoon is even more convinced that his get-tough approach is right. Kim regime officials have always used highly sensationalist rhetoric when describing their South Korean neighbors, but the worry in Seoul is growing that Pyongyang's military capability is catching up with its war-like rhetoric. The Biden administration has tried to mollify those concerns the year, inviting Yoon to the White House for a state dinner, deploying strategic military assets to the South (including a nuclear-capable ballistic missile submarine, which entered a South Korean port in July for the first time in over four decades), and signing the Washington Declaration, a document reaffirming "that any nuclear attack by the DPRK [North Korea] against the ROK [South Korea] will be met with a swift, overwhelming and decisive response." The U.S., South Korea, and Japan have also enhanced trilateral military exercises. And last month, the U.S. and South Korean defense chiefs began the process of boosting interoperability between their forces during a potential nuclear crisis.
The U.S. commitment notwithstanding, South Korean officials as well as the public aren't completely assured. This has as much to do with North Korea's nuclear and missile stockpile as it does with the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Like all countries with a U.S. security guarantee, South Koreans are waiting patiently and eying those elections like a hawk. Biden's victory will likely bring more continuity; in contrast, a return of former President Donald Trump to the White House (assuming he wins the Republican Party nomination) could introduce some abrupt change into the U.S.-South Korean alliance—up to and including U.S. troop withdrawals, or another acrimonious negotiation over alliance cost-sharing.
For some in South Korea, nuclear weapons, not a defense alliance with the U.S., is only thing that would guarantee the country's security. Previously brushed aside to the policy fringes, the nuclear option is now increasingly mainstream, with some well-respected South Korean security analysts publicly recommending it. Yoon broached it earlier in the year, to the shock of international audiences. According to an April poll by the Seoul-based Asan Institute for Policy Studies, more than 64 percent of South Koreans supported developing their own nuclear weapons. Other surveys found that between 70 to 80 percent of South Koreans would either support Seoul building its own nukes, or bringing back the tactical U.S. nuclear warheads that were withdrawn in the early 1990s.
Today, talk about nukes is just that—talk. Whether there will ever be a time when South Korea actually makes the decision to join the nuclear club is a loaded and open question. But it's a question South Korea is debating more openly, and it won't be going away anytime soon.
Daniel R. DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a syndicated foreign affairs columnist at the Chicago Tribune.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Will South Korea Go Nuclear?
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07.12.2023
The United States has plenty of allies around the world, but the alliance with South Korea is at the top of the heap. President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and everyone in between have referred to the U.S.-South Korea alliance as "iron clad," a phrase meant to express a sense of resolve and sure-footedness in one of the world's most militarized regions. The words are backed up by the 28,000 U.S. troops deployed on South Korean soil, constant joint military exercises between Washington and Seoul, and frequent warnings to North Korea that any attack on the South would result in its utter devastation.
The South Koreans appreciate the partnership. But as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un continues to test long-range missiles and launches military reconnaissance satellites into orbit, the South Korean political establishment is getting frustrated and restless.
The frustration is understandable. Despite North Korea being subjected to one of the most stringent U.N. sanctions regimes, Kim Jong Un is proceeding as if there weren't any economic restrictions at all. The North Koreans have tested at least 36 missiles so far in 2023; last year, the number of launches reached at least 95. Kim Jong Un has ordered his scientists and engineers to treat the development of solid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) as a top priority. The North Koreans are well on their way,........
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