[Editorial] LKP leader Hong demands US introduce tactical nuclear weapons to Korean Peninsula

Posted on : 2017-10-27 17:48 KST Modified on : 2017-10-27 17:48 KST
Liberty Korea Party (LKP) leader Hong Joon-pyo demands that the US reintroduce tactical nuclear weapons to the Korean Peninsula during a speech before Korean experts at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington
Liberty Korea Party (LKP) leader Hong Joon-pyo demands that the US reintroduce tactical nuclear weapons to the Korean Peninsula during a speech before Korean experts at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington

Liberty Korea Party (LKP) leader Hong Joon-pyo made a call for redeployment of tactical nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula during his US visit on Oct. 25. He even said in a speech before the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) that South Korea would have “no choice but to arm itself with nuclear weapons” if the US does not redeploy the weapons. US experts on Korean Peninsula issues suggested Hong was “threatening” the US and asked if nuclear armament was truly his goal. They unanimously opposed the idea, predicting that fissures could erupt in the alliance if South Korea continues demanding tactical nukes.

Unfazed, Hong insisted at a talk with foreign correspondents in Washington that South Korea’s nuclear armament “is a possibility” if the tactical nuclear weapons are not deployed. “With reprocessing [of nuclear fuel], we could produce hundreds of warheads within a year, and we have nuclear technology,” he boasted. “We can conduct high-explosive testing through simulations without nuclear testing like North Korea. I went to the Senate and House of Representatives, the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and told them all the same thing.” It’s frightening to imagine what these US government and Congressional figures must have been thinking.

Redeploying tactical nuclear weapons is unjustifiable and infeasible. Not only would it rob us of our grounds for demanding North Korea’s denuclearization, but the US and rest of the global community will not simply sit back and let it happen. We would end up facing the same kinds of international sanctions currently being imposed on the North. Hong cited a “nuclear balance of fear” on the Korean Peninsula as his reasoning, but in the highly unlikely event that North Korea used its nuclear weapons, it would spell its own regime’s annihilation. It’s also obvious that a redeployment of tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea provoke China and Russia, leaving the political situation in northeast Asia vastly more precarious than it is right now. We cannot make it our strategy goal to foment “fear” that will harm stability and possibly invite our own destruction.

The US’s global defense strategy involves use of its nuclear umbrella. Making an exception for South Korea and allowing it to have tactical nuclear weapons on top of the umbrella’s protection would not result in any more of a nuclear deterrent. The first thing noted by the US experts on Korean Peninsula issue was the matter of “military efficacy”: with US strategic nuclear assets being dispatched to the peninsula so often amid the escalating North Korean nuclear crisis, there simply is no need to redeploy strategic nuclear weapons. It’s also enormously irresponsible even for an opposition party to go to the US and “threaten” South Korea’s own nuclear armament if the weapons are not deployed.

Hong further painted the current administration as pro-Pyongyang leftists, proposing a “new South Korea-US cooperation framework for communication among political parties if intergovernmental cooperation breaks down.” We have to wonder just why he went to the US.

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