Let South Korea Build the Bomb

South Korea is populous and prosperous, ahead of the North on almost every measure of national power, other than possession of nuclear weapons. Yet despite enjoying 50-plus times the economic strength and twice the population of its northern antagonist, the Republic of Korea res dependent on the United States for its security.

However, Washington’s policy of protecting everyone from everyone, treating the Pentagon like an international welfare agency, may be ending. President Donald Trump has said the ROK should pay America $10 billion annually for its defense, horrifying the South Korean public and government alike. Moreover, he has talked about withdrawing U.S. troops, about 28,500 of whom re on station. Cheong Seong-chang, an advocate of a South Korean nuclear deterrent, recently observed: “Mistrust of the U.S. is growing.”

Hence, there is increasingly serious interest in the ROK to match the nuclear capability of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Although South Korean elites have been markedly less enthused about the possibility than the ROK public, given the practical challenges of such a course, a recent poll by the Center for International and Strategic Studies found that these sentiments could change in response to rising “abandonment fears regarding the United States, attendant with policies that denigrate allies and call for troop withdrawals.”

Until recently the possibility of a South Korean nuke created near hysteria among U.S. policymakers. For some reason, American analysts and officials prefer to risk Honolulu and Los Angeles for Seoul and Busan. How this is in the interest of the American people is rarely, if ever, addressed. There are lots of good reasons to wish the South well in any conflict on the Korean peninsula, but none warrants America going to war, especially nuclear war. And there is no reason the ROK cannot defend itself.

Pusan University’s Robert E. Kelly and Kyung Hee University’s Min-Hyung Kim recently argued that Washington should back a South Korean bomb. They noted that “Today, the biggest obstacle to South Korean nuclearization is not a domestic constituency but a foreign one: the United States.” Yet the U.S. has adapted to friendly nuclear proliferation in the past and could do so in this case. In their view, a “South Korean decision to nuclearize could, on balance, be good not just for South Korea but also for the United States.”

Yet their argument comes with a bizarre proviso: Washington should tain its security commitment to nuclear-armed ROK. Why? Seoul is obviously capable of deploying whatever conventional forces are necessary to deter and, if necessary, defeat the DPRK. If South Koreans also possessed nuclear weapons, why would they need U.S. backing? Even Kelly and Kim acknowledge that “Inter-Korean nuclear parity would end this dangerous impasse, as Seoul would be able to deter Pyongyang without relying on questionable American guarantees.” So why retain questionable American guarantees?

A South Korean bomb, they write, “offers strategic benefits for Washington and a salve to a strained alliance. Most obviously, a local South Korean deterrent gets the United States off the hook for direct, immediate involvement in a conflict with North Korea that could go nuclear.” However, if the bilateral relationship is not built on today’s security guarantee backed by tripwire U.S. forces, then what is the “mutual defense” treaty for?

The authors contend that their policy “would relieve the United States from its commitment to immediately join a conflict when its very participation would worsen nuclear escalation pressures.” However, Pyongyang is unlikely to be convinced or feel reassured that Washington need not “immediately” enter a war. If American participation is nevertheless expected, the North would still likely believe it necessary to threaten the U.S. homeland. Indeed, as long as the DPRK sees its adversaries as linked militarily, it will have reason to deter America.

Would Kelly and Kim have the U.S. withdraw its forces from the peninsula and eschew involvement in a conflict? If so, the treaty should be rewritten. In fact, Seoul and Washington have much they could cooperate on outside of America’s defending the ROK. To avoid any North Korean nuclear threats against the homeland, the U.S. should end its promise to intervene in a conflict between the South and North. Moreover, reducing military commitments is the best way to cut military force structure and budget outlays.

In this way the U.S. would take South Korean security concerns seriously. The authors observe: “The United States itself would never tolerate the nuclear vulnerability South Korea now experiences. Rather than insisting that its ally re imperiled, Washington should drop its barriers to Seoul’s finding its own way to security.”

Ultimately, Washington may find that the only way to preserve a productive security relationship with the South—and possibly other Asian allies over time—is to accept their developing nuclear weapons. After all, U.S. opposition increasingly looks self-serving. Observed the Stimson Center’s Asma Khalid:

“If Seoul moves to become a nuclear-armed state, it’s conceivable that Tokyo would also acquire atomic weapons to ensure a credible and independent nuclear deterrent. As a result, both nations might view their nuclear capabilities as sufficient deterrence, potentially reducing the need for U.S. forces. From Washington’s point of view, this would weaken the U.S.’ ability to leverage its military footprint in Asia to counter what it considers China’s dangerous and escalatory actions in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait. Both Tokyo and Seoul look to the U.S. for policy guidance. However, if they develop their own nuclear deterrent, the balance of power between all three governments will shift dramatically. South Korea and Japan could become like France and gain greater strategic autonomy in shaping their security policies. Greater strategic autonomy could weaken the asymmetric dependency that has characterized these alliances, in which the U.S. provides advanced military capabilities in exchange for strategic influence.”

Washington should adopt a more restrained, even “humble,” foreign policy, as candidate George W. Bush once advocated. “Strategic influence,” whatever that means in practice, is not worth inserting America into multiple foreign controversies and conflicts of little relevance to U.S. security and risking the homeland to protect friendly states not vital to America’s survival. Washington officials constantly talk about their clout without demonstrating that it exists, and even if it exists, that it matters. American officials have found their ability to impose their will to be limited even when the U.S. is defending client states in war, such as the ROK, Israel, South Vietnam, and Afghanistan. And when the U.S. loses such fights, such as in the latter two cases, the result hasn’t mattered much to America. The predictions of falling dominoes, communist expansion, and rising terrorism proved empty.

One of the obvious, or at least what should be obvious, advantages of being a superpower is that most international problems are not existential. Iran matters to Saudi Arabia and Israel, not America. North Korea matters to South Korea, not the U.S. Afghanistan matters to its neighbors, not Washington. Twenty years of nation-building in Afghanistan went bust, and nothing happened internationally. Claims that Moscow attacked Ukraine because of the Biden administration’s botched withdrawal were preposterous on their face. Russia is a nuclear-armed great power, the Taliban is not. Iraq was a terrible debacle, leaving thousands of Americans dead, tens of thousands of Americans wounded, hundreds of thousands of civilians dead, and trillions of dollars wasted. However, most Americans, at least those who did not lose someone close in the conflict, barely noticed. Washington continued to intervene promiscuously around the globe.

Consider even World Wars I and II. The first was a stupid battle among colonial powers, with bad guys on both sides—the Entente included the terrorist Serbian regime and anti-Semitic Tsarist despotism. Even a victory by either Germany or the Soviet Union in the second would not have meant America’s destruction. A Eurasia dominated by either of the totalitarian powers would have made an ugly world, but either dictatorial triumph would have been fragile and uncertain. U.S. intervention worked because it was restrained, destroying the most aggressive power while preventing the other one, empowered by American aid, from occupying western Europe. Critically, there was no attempt to “roll back” Soviet domination in the east.

U.S. policymakers must decide their ultimate objective. Is it to preserve Washington’s primacy? Or to protect the American people? Many in the foreign policy establishment believe the former enables the latter. Yet when Lord Acton offered his famous aphorism, that “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” he did not exempt democratic states promoting what they perceive to be the good and wonderful. Given the many inane foreign policies advanced by administrations irrespective of party, it should be evident that hubris, incompetence, corruption, and myopia have grown along with American power.

Establishment analysts routinely insist that Washington’s allies are an important strength. If so, the best way to employ them is to shift, not share, defense burdens. Eight decades after the end of World War II, the Europeans should take over their own defense. If Japan fears attack by either North Korea or China, it should accelerate its military spending rather than rely on the U.S.

Even more so for the ROK. Seven decades ago it was still recovering from a devastating conflict. However, its economy began taking off in the 1960s. Democracy arrived at the end of the 1980s. Today there is no comparison between the two Koreas. The North is a wreck—impoverished, isolated, backward, and unstable. The South can do whatever it believes is necessary to deter and defeat North Korea. That includes building a nuclear weapon.

Rather than objecting, Washington should encourage Seoul to act to protect the South Korean people and nation. Then the U.S. should adjust the bilateral relationship accordingly. A nuclear South would force China as well as North Korea to act more carefully. In this way, a ROK nuclear weapon could allow the U.S. to step back from Asia, simultaneously relieving the U.S. of responsibility for defending the South from the North and reducing the need to constrain Chinese geopolitical and military ambitions.