hankyoreh

North Korea carried out another nuclear test. In regard to this fifth nuclear test, which it described as a “nuclear warhead detonation test,” North Korea used the terms “standardization,” “miniaturization,” “lightweight,” and “diversification.” A nuclear warhead detonation test is a test that is conducted with the objective of loading a nuclear warhead on a missile. This makes it more likely that North Korea will evolve a system capable of the mass production of nuclear weapons.
It also appears that North Korea’s nuclear tests are no longer desperate measures; they are instead routine behaviors designed to secure a nuclear arsenal. The North is now likely to be able to conduct a nuclear test whenever it wants. Because of North Korea’s misplaced trust in nuclear weapons, rage and a sense of helplessness are rampant in South Korean society. That’s how sick and tired South Koreans are of North Korea’s nuclear program.
Disturbingly, the argument that South Korea should also acquire its own nuclear weapons to counter North Korea has recently began to emerge not from the far right but rather from the ruling Saenuri Party.
A forum of 31 Saenuri Party lawmakers (including floor leader Chung Jin-suk) that was formed to find a solution to the North Korean nuclear issue released a statement on Sep. 12 arguing that South Korea “should mobilize all available methods, including nuclear armament, to guarantee the safety of the Republic of Korea and its people.”
While calls for nuclear armament run the gamut from independent nuclear armament with the purpose of self-defense to having the US deploy tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea, they are all arguments for blocking nuclear weapons with nuclear weapons. These arguments appear to have the support not only of Saenuri Party leader Lee Jung-hyun but also of leading presidential contenders in the party, including Kim Moo-sung, Kim Moon-soo and Oh Sei-hoon.
Here’s the thing, though. There are quite a few problems to address before South Korea could actually acquire nuclear weapons.
First, South Korea would need to have the resolve to scrap its alliance with the US, since Washington is adamantly opposed to South Korean nuclear armament.
Second, evidence would have to be adduced to show that self-defensive nuclear armament would serve the national interest better than the extended deterrence provided by the US.
Third, South Korea would have to withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which bans nuclear development for military purposes. This would make South Korea only the second party to leave the NPT, after North Korea.
Fourth, South Korean public opinion would have to be united enough to withstand international economic sanctions after withdrawing from the NPT. South Korea is more than 90% dependent upon foreign trade.
Fifth, South Korea would have to shred the nuclear agreement with the US that was recently revised after 42 years. This agreement bans South Korea from independently enriching uranium or reprocessing plutonium.
Sixth, South Korea would have to figure out where to acquire the uranium to fuel the 24 nuclear plants that provide 31% of the country’s total power. At the same time, it would also have to prepare for widespread blackouts.
Seventh, South Korea would have to build nuclear facilities for enriching weapons-grade uranium or reprocessing plutonium. This would require tunnels to be secretly dug deep underground.
Eighth, South Korea would have to reacquire wartime operational control of its military, which is currently held by the US. Nuclear armament for self-defense only makes sense if South Korea has the authority to use its own nuclear weapons.
Ninth, the government would have to convince the South Korean public that North Korea will not attack between the time that the US removes the nuclear umbrella and the time that South Koreans are able to develop nuclear weapons. There would have to be some kind of alternative plan to fill the security vacuum.
Tenth, the government would have to explain to the public why South Korea, which has a defense budget that is 40 times larger than North Korea‘s and which has an alliance with the US, would throw away its international reputation as the more legitimate and more just half of the peninsula, and be instantaneously degraded into a pariah state like the one to the north.

Choi Jong-kun

How wonderful it would be if this fantasy of nuclear rearmament could resolve the North Korean nuclear issue! But surely it must be more practical for us to apply our political imagination to finding ways to bring about North Korea’s peaceful denuclearization.

In an age when people once believed that unification would be a jackpot, we should not allow our North Korean policy to reach such a desperate state that responsible people are talking about nuclear armament. It hardly seems healthy for the security discussion in South Korean society to bounce from one extreme to another like the ball in a neighborhood soccer match.

By Choi Jong-kun, Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Studies at Yonsei University

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