After years of hesitation, South Korean defense officials and members of President Park Geun-hye’s ruling Saenuri Party are openly discussing the possibility of pre-emptive strikes on North Korean missile and nuclear facilities. Increasingly, political figures are urging both their own government and the U.S. to go beyond the level of study promised by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and enshrine the right to respond to North Korean threats at least with the heaviest conventional weapons in their arsenal as a formal tenet of U.S. and Korean policy.
Nor is “strike first” the only demand gaining common currency among conservative Koreans. While North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, orders missile and nuclear tests, voices are rising within the Saenuri for South Korea to develop its own nuclear deterrent. The U.S. has opposed proliferation ever since physicists at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute were discovered looking into it during the presidency of Ms. Park’s father, Park Chung-hee.
Right-leaning figures are restive about constraints imposed by a longtime ally they fear might not rush to defend the South as it did after North Korean forces invaded the South in 1950. Korean scientists under a deal reached last year with the U.S. are on a course to being able to reprocess uranium for nuclear energy—and hope eventually to engage in pyro-processing. That would enable them to reprocess spent fuel at considerably higher temperatures than needed simply for nuclear reactors. Although far below the level needed to produce weapons-grade material, critics believe pyro-processing would be a prelude to South Korea eventually building its own warheads.
Political pressure for South Korea to do just that has spiked as Donald Trump has said that South Korea, along with Japan, Germany and Saudi Arabia, should pay a much larger portion of the cost of their own defenses. Mr. Trump’s view that perhaps Japan and South Korea should have nuclear weapons has done little to assuage concerns among Korean conservatives.
Assuming that Hillary Clinton is the winner on Nov. 8, they ask whether she would order military retaliation if Kim Jong Un made good on threats to “annihilate” Seoul—or attack the U.S. As the rhetoric level rises, the question is whether they can count on the next U.S. president to defend them despite ritualistic pledges of dedication to the U.S.-Korea alliance.
Against that background, a forum of Saenuri members of the National Assembly called for the U.S. and South Korea “to come up with detailed and effective deterrent measures”—including a decision to attack North Korea with nuclear weapons “if it makes another nuclear weapons-related provocation.”
And that’s not all. The government, with the avid support of Saenuri leaders, has plans to develop a nuclear submarine—a project seen as vital to deterring the North Korean submarine threat. Korean defense officials will need U.S. backing for such a project, but they’re optimistic that the U.S. will relent—even if approval of a nuclear-weapons program appears unlikely.
Calls for a South Korean nuclear submarine are rising in tandem with North Korean missile testing. The North has a large submarine fleet—and has spread alarm by testing a ballistic missile fired from one of its subs.
One South Korean assembly member, Won Yoo-chul, derided longtime U.S. guarantees of a “nuclear umbrella” since the withdrawal of U.S. nuclear weapons from the South 25 years ago. “We cannot borrow an umbrella from a neighbor every time it rains,” he warned. “We need to have a raincoat and wear it ourselves.”
The North Koreans for their part vow to strike first—against a nuclear-armed U.S. “We will not step back,” said Lee Yong Pil, an official at the North Korean Foreign Ministry, as long as the U.S. “has nuclear weapons off our coast, targeting our country, our capital and our Dear Leader, Kim Jong Un.”
U.S. and South Korean officials are talking openly about “decapitation” of the North Korean leadership in a quick strike at Pyongyang. If the word seems hyperbolic to Americans, North and South Koreans alike take it seriously. North Korea has said the term clearly shows why the North has to have a nuclear program “for self-defense” while many South Korean officials see “decapitation” as the ultimate solution—with or without nuclear weapons.
“Korea Massive Punishment and Retaliation” was the name the Koreans gave a massive exercise this month in the Yellow Sea in which the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan led a joint U.S.-South Korean strike force. Their mission was more sharply defined than in previous war games. This time, said a Korean defense official, ships and planes focused specifically on imaginary North Korean nuclear and missile facilities, command headquarters—and Kim Jong Un.
Rear Adm. Kim Jung-soo, commander of the South Korean flotilla operating with the Ronald Reagan, reflected a widespread view about the need to go beyond war games. “We will be ready to respond to any type of provocation from North Korea,” he said ominously, “and to punish when necessary.” South Korean defense officials and conservative politicians increasingly believe there will be no choice but to strike first before the North fabricates more warheads.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/south-koreas-march-toward-a-strike-first-nuclear-policy-1477414963