White House —
South Korea agreed not to pursue its own nuclear weapons program, in return for a greater decision-making role in U.S. contingency planning in the event of a North Korean nuclear attack and a more muscular U.S. presence in the region.
The deal is part of the so-called , announced Wednesday, as President Joe Biden hosts South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol in a state visit to celebrate the two countries’ 70th year of bilateral relations and discuss the allies’ future relationship.
“Our mutual defense treaty is ironclad, and that includes our commitment to extended deterrence,” said Biden during his joint White House press conference with Yoon, referring to the 1953 agreement signed at the end of the Korean War that commits Washington to help South Korea defend itself, particularly from North Korea.
He repeated a line from his administration’s 2022 Nuclear Posture Review that a nuclear attack against the United States or its allies and partners is unacceptable and will result in the end of that regime.
Speaking through an interpreter, Yoon called the Washington Declaration “an unprecedented expansion and strengthening” of the extended deterrence strategy — a term also known as the American nuclear umbrella. It says the United States will respond to attacks on its allies and partners “across the spectrum of potential nuclear and non-nuclear scenarios.”
“Our two countries have agreed to immediate bilateral presidential consultations in the event of North Korea's nuclear attack and promised to respond swiftly, overwhelmingly and decisively using the full force of the alliance, including the United States’ nuclear weapons,” Yoon said.
In a briefing to reporters Tuesday, senior administration officials said that under the Washington Declaration, Seoul will “maintain its nonnuclear status and continue to abide by all the conditions of its signatory status to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.” The NPT, which South Korea ratified in 1975, prohibits signatories from developing nuclear weapons.
The two countries will also establish the U.S.–Republic of Korea Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG), a “regular bilateral consultation mechanism that will focus on nuclear and strategic planning issues and will give our ROK allies additional insight in how we think about planning for major contingencies,” the official added.
Beyond greater information sharing, Seoul will have a greater voice in the deliberations of U.S. weapons deployment, he said.
Biden is trying to demonstrate that his pledge to defend South Korea is “credible and rock-solid,” said Scott Snyder, director of the program on U.S.-Korea policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. Giving South Korea a greater say in nuclear planning is needed to address the country’s increasing sense of vulnerability from North Korea, Snyder told VOA.
As Pyongyang moves rapidly with its nuclear weapons program, including developing missiles that can target American cities, there has been growing doubt among South Koreans on whether Washington would risk its own safety to protect Seoul and whether Seoul should continue to rely on U.S. extended deterrence.
In January, Yoon told his defense and foreign ministry officials that if the threat posed by North Korea “gets worse,” his country may “introduce tactical nuclear weapons or build them on our own.”
Seoul walked back Yoon’s comments following an international backlash. However, the narrative of South Korea having its own nuclear deterrence capability has become more mainstream in the country’s national security discourse.
A showed that 71% of South Koreans say their country should build its own nuclear weapons.
The U.S. official said the deal would mean enhanced integration of South Korean conventional weapons into U.S. strategic planning, and a more muscular approach to deterrence through increased war games and deployments of military assets, including U.S. nuclear ballistic submarine visits to South Korea, which has not happened since the early 1980s.
The U.S. removed its last tactical nuclear weapon from South Korea in 1991 as part of a broader global nuclear drawdown agreed by U.S. President George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
Go Myong-hyun, a research fellow at Seoul's Asan Institute for Policy Studies, a conservative think tank in Seoul, told VOA that short of positioning American nuclear weapons in the region, which is what proponents of South Korean nuclear deterrence want, establishing the NCG is the next best thing. The NCG is similar to the as they deployed thousands of nuclear weapons across Europe during the Cold War.