The Case for South Korean Nuclearization, Part I: The Failure of Denuclearizing North Korea
Sejong Institute scholar Cheong Seong-Chang makes the case that the ROK’s nuclearization would be a net benefit to the U.S., Korea, and the world. Here is the first of three parts.
Introduction by Mitch Blatt: Dr. Seong-Chang Cheong, the Director of Department of Reunification Strategy Studies at the Sejong Institute, has been a Lecturer at Seoul National University, a Policy Advisor for the Ministry of Unification, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Office of National Security, and a Guest Commentator for the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS). He is an advocate for South Korea’s indigenous development of a nuclear weapons program. He argues that the ROK’s nuclearization would enhance Korean national defense and take pressure off the United States and could compel North Korea to the negotiating table. He has provided me a paper he wrote on the issue in December 2022. I will be publishing the paper this week in three parts. In Part I, Cheong explains how we have gotten to this point and why attempts at complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula have failed.
Text by Seong-Chang Cheong
Ⅰ. Background
In the past, North Korea insisted that its nuclear weapons development was not aimed at the neighboring South but at coping with the hostile policy of the U.S. and its nuclear threat. However, Pyongyang’s nuclear threat against Seoul has become ever conspicuous this past year. Last April, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) revealed its intention to deploy new-type tactical guided weapons carrying tactical nuclear warheads along the frontline units.
On September 8, 2022, the country even justified the right to carry out a nuclear first strike against the Republic of Korea (ROK) through the adoption of a new nuclear policy law. Additionally, from September 25 to October 9, Pyongyang’s “tactical nuclear operations units” conducted launching drills of super-large multiple rocket launchers and tactical ballistic missiles, designed to strike potential targets in Seoul such as airfields, ports, and command facilities.
With the ever-escalating North Korean nuclear threat against South Korea, the North’s nuclear arsenal is expected to further grow rapidly. As of now, it is estimated that the DPRK possesses approximately 50 nuclear warheads (or enough fissile material to produce such number of nuclear warheads) and the number is expected to reach over 100 by 2030, with the yearly production of more than five bombs. Moreover, many experts have warned that North Korea is likely to conduct its seventh nuclear test as the tunnels at the Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Facility which had been previously demolished in May 2018, appeared to be restored. Pyongyang also appears to have resumed the construction of its 50MW nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, which will allow it to ramp up the production of weapons-grade plutonium as much as 10 times when operations resume.
Based on these recent geopolitical changes, some American experts suggest “3.5 Options” nuclear planning, which include the strengthening South Korea’s engagement in U.S. extended deterrence in conjunction with three options: deployment of tactical nuclear weapons, nuclear sharing, and indigenous nuclearization. They argue that this will be able to reassure Seoul through having more talks on the nuclear planning and its targets as it is being done at the Extended Deterrence Strategy and Consultation Group (EDSCG). This “3.5 Options” nuclear planning could be an inevitable choice for the moment when Seoul does not possess its own nuclear capability. However, it is doubtful if that would be the best solution in the long term.
While certain experts in the U.S. argue that the ROK’s indigenous nuclear weapons development is the worst among the three options, it is the option which is most endorsed by the South Korean public. As North Korean nuclear and missile threats continue to increase, it appeared that more than 70% of South Koreans support the idea of its own nuclearization according to various polls conducted over the past two years. Therefore, the American experts in Korean politics need to clearly understand the reason why the South Korean public prefers the indigenous nuclear capability the most before jumping to a conclusion that Korea’s own nuclearization is “the worst possible option” for both the U.S. and the ROK.
In fact, Seoul’s nuclearization will disturb Pyongyang’s “political calculus” and serve as a strong warning to Pyongyang, which has been refusing to negotiate and focusing on advancing its own nuclear and missile capabilities. South Korean nuclearization can also be a useful trump card to encourage Beijing to put pressure on Pyongyang to return to the negotiation table for denuclearization, out of concern for a possible nuclear domino effect that Seoul’s own nuclear arms development may trigger in Tokyo and Taipei. It is thus not reasonable that some American experts rush to conclude that the ROK’s nuclearization is the “worst possible option.”
While the North Korean nuclear issue is one of many foreign policy conundrums faced by the U.S., it is the most essential security issue for South Korea, which has been threatening the nation’s survival. Therefore, it will be in the best interests of the U.S. and the ROK that Seoul takes the initiative in managing and resolving the North Korean nuclear issue through indigenous nuclear weapons development.
Against this backdrop, I will first explore why “the complete denuclearization” of the DPRK is virtually an unachievable goal, then present the discussions on Seoul’s nuclearization and the results of polls conducted in the ROK before concluding by suggesting the North Korean nuclear risk management measures through South Korea’s own nuclear capability.
Ⅱ. Is “the complete denuclearization” of North Korea a realistic goal?[1]
The main obstacles to the denuclearization of North Korea include:
① North Korea’s pursuit of self-defense policy and absence of strong alliances;
② the failure to normalize the U.S.-DPRK bilateral relations and the continuing isolation of the DPRK;
③ North Korea’s conventional inferiority to South Korea;
④ the advancements of North Korean nuclear and missile capabilities cited as the most important achievement of Kim Jong Un;
⑤ the absence of South Korean elaborate strategy to negotiate with the North ;
⑥ the absence of the U.S.’ sophisticated negotiation strategy towards the DPRK and deep-rooted mistrust between Washington and Pyongyang;
⑦ intensifying strategic competition between the U.S. and China and Beijing’s indifferent and passive attitude on the North Korean nuclear issue;
⑧ the implications of the Ukraine’s case—which had abandoned its nuclear weapons and has been invaded by Russia—to the North Korean leadership;
⑨ the collapse of the international community’s cooperation system towards the denuclearization of North Korea and deepening ties between Moscow and Pyongyang since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war;
⑩ North Korea’s nationwide lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The first obstacle to the denuclearization of North Korea is Pyongyang’s self-defense policy and absence of strong alliances. While Seoul is largely dependent on the ROK-U.S. alliance for its security, Pyongyang does not have any strong ally which can beef up its military strength, and thus, has been bolstering its national defense power in line with its pursuit of self-defense. Even Beijing has only limited influence over Pyongyang. Since the China-DPRK Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance is rather a defense treaty, there is no military cooperation system, such as the ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Command, or joint military exercises between the two countries. This means, without North Korea’s nuclear program, the country will be under a very unfavorable conditions in which it has to face South Korea’s overwhelming conventional superiority and the U.S.’ nuclear weapons.
The second obstacle is the failure of normalization of the U.S.-DPRK bilateral relations and the continuing diplomatic isolation of North Korea. In 1992, Kim Il-sung asked Deng Xiaoping to wait for the U.S. to establish diplomatic relations with the DPRK before China established relations with the ROK. However, Deng ignored the request, and Beijing normalized relations with Seoul before Pyongyang was able to win recognition from Washington. Since then, the military confrontation between the U.S. and North Korea has maintained, and the latter failed to integrate into the international community. Under such circumstances of international isolation, the DPRK had no choice but to stick to its nuclear weapons development program for the regime survival.
The third obstacle is North Korea’s conventional inferiority to South Korea. According to the Global Firepower’s 2022 World Military Strength Rankings, the ROK ranked sixth in conventional military power while the DPRK ranked 30th. Moreover, Pyongyang cannot compete with Seoul in conventional capability since the former cannot afford to buy advanced conventional weapons from Beijing or Moscow due to a foreign currency shortage and sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council (UNSC). However, North Korea considers that South Korea is no match for the North since the North possesses nuclear weapons while the South does not.
The fourth obstacle is the reality in which the advancements of North Korean nuclear and missile capabilities are cited in Pyongyang as the most important achievement of Kim Jong Un. The North Korean regime promotes the idea that it was Kim Jong Un who completed the “national nuclear force,” and thus raised North Korea’s status to a “strategic country.” Since the achievement of “completion of national nuclear power” has played the most important role in inspiring loyalty among North Korean people, it is hardly possible for Kim Jong Un to abandon the nuclear arsenal.
The fifth obstacle is the absence of South Korea’s elaborate strategy for negotiating with the North. Both Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye administrations displayed the absence of such a strategy, sticking to the “denuclearization first” policy, which would never be accepted by the DPRK. The former president Moon Jae-in also failed to establish and suggest sophisticated denuclearization strategy which both Pyongyang and Washington could accept. While only focusing on bringing then-U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean Chairman Kim Jong Un to the summit table, Moon received criticism from Kim Jong Un for being “a meddlesome mediator” and “facilitator.”
The sixth obstacle is the absence of the U.S.’ delicate negotiation strategy and the deep-rooted mistrust between the U.S. and North Korea. For example, during the U.S.-North Korea high-level talks held in July 2018, then-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called for full list of North Korean nuclear programs. The DPRK harshly criticized such a demand, labeling it a “gangster-like demand for denuclearization.” During the U.S.-DPRK Hanoi Summit held in February 2019, the two sides differed greatly in their positions: Pyongyang did not want to discuss its nuclear programs at that stage and offered to dismantle the nuclear facilities at Yongbyon while Washington adhered to its hardline position of “denuclearization must precede any sanctions relief” and even demanded Pyongyang to abandon its chemical and biological weapons. In addition to the two sides running parallel in their positions, Trump administration also experienced internal confusion due to a disagreement between the Secretary of State and the National Security Advisor, which hampered the cooperation between Seoul and Washington in the end.
The seventh obstacle is North Korea’s taking advantage of the U.S.-China strategic competition and China’s passive attitude of an observer. Since 2018, North Korea has appeared to effectively take advantage of the strategic competition between the U.S. and China. When the mood for rapprochement was building up between Pyongyang and Washington in 2018, the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping accepted to have five summits with Kim Jong Un before and after the U.S.-DPRK summits—even though Xi refused to have any summits with Kim for his first six years in power. Since then, China changed its attitude and became passive towards the sanctions against North Korea, paving the way for the advancements of North Korean nuclear and missile capabilities after the failure of the Hanoi Summit.
As the U.S.-China strategic competition intensifies, China has recently been uncooperative with the U.S. regarding the denuclearization of North Korea. This year, China refused to adopt an UNSC resolution that strengthened sanctions on Pyongyang as a response to its ICBM test launch. Rather, China is proposing sanctions relief on North Korea.
The eighth obstacle is the implications that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has for the North Korean leadership. Ukraine used to be the third largest nuclear power when it became independent after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It had a stockpile of 1,900 nuclear warheads, 176 ICBMs, and 44 strategic bombers. However, in 1994, Ukraine signed the Budapest Memorandum under the pressure of permanent members of the UNSC, including the U.S. and Russia. As a result of the Memorandum, Ukraine returned all the nuclear arsenal it possessed to Russia by 1996 in exchange for the assurances that its independence, sovereignty, and the territorial integrity—including the Crimean Peninsula—would be respected. However, Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Although Russia has violated all the Budapest commitments, NATO and even the U.S., which promised security assurances, are providing only military assistance, being reluctant to intervene directly. Against this backdrop, the North Korean leadership is more likely to judge that if it gives up its nuclear program, it could be attacked by the U.S., like how Ukraine was invaded by Russia.
The ninth obstacle is the close contact between Pyongyang and Moscow after the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine War, and the collapse of the international community’s cooperative system for North Korea’s denuclearization. On March 2, 2022, the UN held an emergency special session of the UN General Assembly to adopt a resolution, which deplored the Russian invasion of Ukraine and demanded an immediate withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine. China, India, Iran, and some other countries abstained while North Korea joined Belarus, Syria, and a couple of other countries in voting against the resolution. Due to such close contact between Pyongyang and Moscow, the UNSC has failed to adopt additional sanctions against the DPRK when it test-fired a new-type ICBM this year since Russia and China vetoed—even the UNSC could not adopt a presidential statement. Under such circumstances, North Korea will be able to test-launch ICBMs and conduct another nuclear test, free from the fear of additional sanctions.
Finally, the tenth obstacle is North Korea’s “national lockdown” due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the DPRK, whose health care system is vulnerable, has been avoiding contact with the outside world to the extent that it did not even allow China’s new ambassador to Pyongyang to enter North Korea. It is thus difficult to expect North Korea to participate in face-to-face negotiations for some time to come.
As John Mearsheimer, a leading American realist political scientist and distinguished professor at the University of Chicago, said at a conference held by Georgetown University on March 19, 2019,[2] North Korea will never give up its nuclear weapons, and thus, denuclearization negotiations with the North could be “one giant waste of time.” He also indicated, “this is a hopeless situation. We just have to live with the fact that North Korea is going to have nuclear weapons for the foreseeable future and do everything we can to make sure we don’t have a nuclear war.”
As mentioned above, there are too many obstacles in the way of the denuclearization of North Korea. Therefore, it would be a more realistic attitude for South Korea and the U.S. to focus on securing a reliable deterrence against the North’s nuclear threat rather than “complete denuclearization” of North Korea, which is unlikely to be realized.
Ⅲ. Discussions on the indigenous nuclearization in South Korea and poll results
On September 16, 2022, after holding an EDSCG meeting in Washington D.C., the U.S. reiterated in the joint statement its “ironclad and unwavering commitment to draw on the full range of its military capabilities, including nuclear, conventional, missile defense, and other advanced non-nuclear capabilities, to provide extended deterrence for the ROK.” Furthermore, the ROK-U.S. warned that “any DPRK nuclear attack would be met with an overwhelming and decisive response” by the ROK and U.S. However, the two countries failed to clarify what the “overwhelming and decisive response” may be.
The problem here is the feasibility and desirability of the “overwhelming and decisive response” against North Korea’s nuclear attack is in question. In case of an inter-Korean accidental clash, the North may use tactical nuclear weapons to overcome its conventional inferiority, and if the U.S. uses its strategic nuclear weapons as an “overwhelming and decisive response,” Pyongyang is also likely to launch strategic nuclear attacks in retaliation against Seoul, Tokyo, and Washington D.C.
In this scenario, the entire Korean Peninsula would turn into a “hell” where no human beings can live on, and the U.S. homeland would suffer from a severe loss of lives and economy which will require a long recovery time. If the “overwhelming” response means an overwhelming conventional retaliation in case of North Korean use of tactical nuclear weapons, Washington will not be free from criticism for giving in to Pyongyang’s nuclear threats to avoid a nuclear war, destroying South Korean people’s trust in the ROK-U.S. alliance.
In order to effectively deter North Korean use of nuclear weapons, the U.S. should clearly declare its commitment to “immediately” retaliate with corresponding nuclear measures in case that North Korea uses tactical or strategical nuclear weapons against South Korea. Otherwise, the question “Will the U.S. protect Seoul even at the cost of sacrificing Washington D.C. and New York?” will inevitably continue to spread in Korea.
As North Korea already succeeded in developing a hydrogen bomb in 2017 and is making significant progress in developing an ICBM capable of striking the U.S. mainland, South Koreans continue to raise the question of whether they should continue to rely exclusively on the U.S. nuclear umbrella and extended deterrence.
During the Sejong Defense Forum held on October 5, 2022, Kong Pyongwon, the Director of Security Strategy Center at Yonsei University Aerospace Strategy & Technology Institute (and former Deputy Director of Strategic Planning at the Joint Chiefs of Staff), said, “In the scenario of the DPRK’s nuclear use against the ROK, if the former threatens to launch an ICBM on Seattle or LA in case of an U.S. nuclear attack, it will be very difficult for the U.S. president to use nuclear weapons against Pyongyang.”
Having held several seminars with American scholars, Director Kong asked them if the U.S. president could use nuclear weapons against North Korea in such a situation. Most of them replied that “(In such a situation,) the U.S. president will not be able to decide to use nuclear weapons.” If it is difficult for Washington to launch a nuclear attack in retaliation against Pyongyang out of the fear of a nuclear war, re-deployment of the U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea or nuclear sharing between the U.S.-Japan-ROK will not make a big difference since it will be always the U.S. president who has the authority to decide to use the nuclear weapons in any case.
Last November 3, during the 54th U.S.-ROK Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) held in Washington D.C., the defense ministers of both countries pledged to “further strengthen the Alliance’s capabilities, information sharing, consultation process, as well as joint planning and execution, to deter and respond to DPRK’s advancing nuclear and missile threats.”
In this meeting, the U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin expressed his concern on the DPRK’s attempts to develop various nuclear weapons, as well as means of delivery, and reaffirmed the firm U.S. commitment to providing extended deterrence to the ROK utilizing the full range of U.S. defense capabilities, including nuclear, conventional, and missile defense capabilities and advanced non-nuclear capabilities. Secretary Austin also warned that any nuclear attack against the U.S. or its allies and partners, including the use of non-strategic (tactical) nuclear weapons, is unacceptable and will result in the end of the Kim regime. It is also a very meaningful achievement of the meeting that the U.S. Secretary of Defense and the ROK Defense Minister further pledged to conduct the Deterrence Strategy Committee Table-top-exercise (DSC TTX) annually, which is to include a DPRK nuclear use scenario, in response to recent changes in DPRK nuclear strategy and capabilities. The problem is, however, that it is still doubtful whether the U.S. will be able to launch a nuclear attack on North Korea right way, even risking a nuclear war, in case of North Korean nuclear attack against the South.
After witnessing the Russian invasion of Ukraine this year, many South Koreans became concerned that a war also could break out on the Korean Peninsula as a result of misjudgment made by political leaders. In this context, in the event of an armed conflict on the Peninsula, it is impossible to rule out a scenario in which North Korea, which is at an absolute conventional inferiority to the South, will use tactical nuclear weapons to turn the tide of the war. This is why many experts, who had opposed South Korea’s independent nuclear armament in the past, have expressed their support for the idea this year. With many South Korean conservative policy makers, who in the past advocated the re-deployment of the U.S. tactical nuclear weapons, now supporting Seoul’s own nuclear arsenal development, a “political upheaval” is occurring among experts and politicians in the ROK.
The ruling People Power Party’s Special Committee on North Korean Nuclear Crisis Response delivered on November 17 an interim report[3] to the Party’s Emergency Committee Chairman Chung Jin-suk. Concerning the measures to strengthen the U.S. extended deterrence as agreed at the ROK-U.S. bilateral summits and SCM, the report estimates that “practical measures to ensure implementation of the U.S. extended deterrence are insufficient, other than an expression of the will to provide strong extended deterrence.” The report also indicated that “a secrete project to secure the potential for going nuclear must be planned” and “it is necessary to pursue measures to increase potential which do not violate the ROK-U.S. agreements or the NPT, such as assessing the current level and reviewing optimal paths toward independent development of nuclear weapons.”
After the North Korea’s adoption of a new nuclear policy law on September 8, interviews and editorials supporting Seoul’s indigenous nuclearization have been published in various news media almost every day, which is an unprecedented phenomenon. For example, a military journalist of Chosun Ilbo, a South Korean conservative newspaper with the most subscribers, also estimated this year that the re-deployment of US tactical nuclear weapons is practically difficult to be realized, [4] and he has officially proposed advancing the “Mugunghwa Plan” to secure the potential for nuclear armament.[5]
Since South Korea is a democracy, its people’s demands and aspirations cannot be ignored. In December 2021, before the Ukraine war broke out, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs (CCGA) conducted a survey of 1,500 South Koreans and 71% of them supported the country’s nuclearization. To the question asking the preference between the ROK’s own nuclear weapons development and the deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons, an overwhelming majority (67%) of the respondents replied that they prefer the former while only 9% of them replied that they prefer the latter.
According to the report “South Korean Public Opinion on ROK-U.S. Bilateral Ties” published by Asan Institute for Policy Studies, 70.2% of the respondents supported the country’s nuclear weapons development. Even with the possibility of the international sanctions as a result of the indigenous nuclearization, 65% of the respondents—except those who did not answer or replied that they do not know—still support the idea, showing only a mere 6.3%-point decrease from the 71.3% point, the percentage of those in favor of independent nuclear armament without mentioning the possibility of sanctions. South And North Development (SAND) corporation also conducted a poll in its “Report on National Security Consciousness 2022” released last June, and 74.9% of the respondents supported the South Korea’s own nuclear weapons development.
On top of that, if Pyongyang conducts its seventh or even eighth nuclear tests in the foreseeable future with tactical nuclear weapons or miniaturized hydrogen bombs, this growing trend of public opinion in support of South Korea’s acquiring its own nuclear weapons will be further strengthened, which the Korean government will hardly continue to neglect.
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Notes
[1] This part is a summary of Cheong, Seong-Chang, “The Yoon Suk-yeol administration’s North Korea Policy: Bipartisan North Korea Policy and Responses to North Korean Nuclear Programs (Current Issues & Policies, April 2022, No. 17, Sejong Institute)”, and Lee Daewoo, “Foreign Policy Agenda for the Yoon Suk-yeol administration (Sejong Institute, 2022)”, pp.48-54.
[2]
[3] https://www.joongang.co.kr/article/25120044
[4] https://www.chosun.com/politics/politics_general/2022/10/18/L7YRYRQ7LRHOVDTPP4KH2E6MOI/
[5] https://www.chosun.com/politics/politics_general/2022/11/08/IOGSSW2TPNC2VEJPKK6EXLNABU/