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Is It Possible for South Korea and the US to Held Nuclear Exercises?

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On January 2, 2023, the Seoul Presidential Office announced that South Korea and The United States (US) are discussing holding an exercise on a joint nuclear operation against North Korea. Shortly after that, US President Joe Biden said that there would be no joint nuclear exercises in the region.[1] Upon this, South Korea stated that the negotiations with the US were ongoing, and that Biden had to say “no.”

Since it is not a nuclear power, South Korea aims to take advantage of the US’s mass destruction capacity to respond to North Korea’s nuclear attacks. Both Biden and White House officials deny these allegations. The justification for this is that South Korea is not a nuclear power; therefore, joint nuclear exercises with Seoul would be “extremely difficult.” Despite this, it can be said that information sharing, joint emergency planning and the possibility of an exercise continue in the event of a nuclear attack between the two countries.

Nuclear weapons, also known as weapons of mass destruction, constitute a powerful deterrent against rivals. This is because it instantly destroys the enemy’s defensive capacity and largely eliminates the possibility of retaliation. Therefore, the best response to nuclear deterrence is to establish nuclear deterrence. South Korea, on the other hand, has strived for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula to this day. In the Indo-Pacific Strategy Document that it recently published, the Seoul administration reiterated that it would combat the threat of nuclear weapons from North Korea and reiterated its efforts to denuclearize the island.

Announcing that they will hold joint nuclear exercises with the US, less than a week after the publication of the said document, was interpreted as a sign that South Korea might become aggressive in its foreign and security policies. Seoul may have planned these nuclear exercises to build deterrence. Because Japan and the US have been trying to join forces recently within the scope of integrated deterrence strategy. With the inclusion of South Korea in this, the deterrent effect of the allied states against China and North Korea will be even wider. But at the same time, this strategy will increase the anger of North Korea and the danger of nuclear war will escalate.

The change of power in South Korea in 2022 paved the way for improving and further developing Washington-Seoul relations. However, the US-South Korean rapprochement also leads to an increase in tensions in the region and an increased risk of war. Indeed, since the summer of 2022, the US and South Korea have increased their military exercises in the region, including in Japan. For example, after North Korea’s ballistic missile test at the end of September 2022, the US and South Korea conducted “Live Fire Exercises.” It is known that Japan is also involved in these exercises. In the following period, Seoul stated that these exercises will continue and recently mentioned joint nuclear exercises.

The military support in question by the US leads to an escalation of North Korea’s threat to South Korea. Due to this increasing threat, the Seoul administration needs the deterrent power of the US more and more every passing day. If South Korea can survive during or after the North Korean nuclear attack, it will need to use nuclear power to respond to it at the same rate. Since South Korea does not have these weapons, it will surely want to take advantage of this US power.

When North Korea’s ballistic missile tests are considered together with the “threats” of Russia and China, the security of the Far East is in danger. The US considers that it cannot face these multiple threats alone. That is why it is joining forces with South Korea and Japan. Because Washington can eliminate these great rivals only through multiple coalitions. South Korea and Japan are at the centre of the three major threats (Russia, North Korea, and China). Therefore, the main allies of the US in the region are South Korea and Japan. But South Korea avoids triggering a grand coalition war. Particularly, he believes that there is no way to resist North Korea’s nuclear weapons and the Chinese military. For this reason, it does not want to escalate the crisis further by being included in the alliances of the US.

South Korea has a dilemma about whether to support the US in its regional defence and security policies. This is also often interpreted as the inexperience of the Seoul administration in foreign policy. It is claimed that the Seoul government has damaged the country’s international reputation since it has faced votes of no confidence from several ministers in domestic politics and its failed foreign policy moves. Therefore, there is a high probability that the Seoul administration will also make mistakes in its defence-security policies. The government’s announcement of joint nuclear exercises with the US, after saying that it opposes the use of nuclear weapons, is a concrete example of this.

South Korea decided that there was no other way to counter the threats of North Korea and began to adopt an aggressive foreign policy. This means chasing after the dangerous crisis policy of the US. Japan has made a similar mistake.  Both countries have begun to take a more aggressive stance by revising their defence-security strategies. As a result of the encouragement and guidance of the US, South Korea and Japan are unwittingly becoming a pole against North Korea and China.

Washington’s politics of polarization may eventually pave the way for the establishment of a collective defence pact in the region. The goal of the USA also may be to establish a collective defence pact in the region by deepening the crisis and then citing this as a justification. American think tanks are already talking about the name “North Atlantic and Indo-Pacific Treaty Organization (NAIPTO).”[2] Therefore, it can be argued that in 2023, a defence alliance in which Japan, South Korea and the USA are at the centre will be mentioned more strongly.

In the event of a deep and irreversible deterioration of the security environment, the states of the region will begin to think that the only way to stop North Korea and China is NAIPTO. For this reason, it can be claimed that South Korea will cooperate more with the US in the military sense in the future, and as a result, the regional security environment will deteriorate further. The most practical outcome of this would be the establishment of NAIPTO.


[1] “South Korea Says Talks Underway On U.S. Nuclear Operations Planning”, Nikkie, https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/N-Korea-at-crossroads/South-Korea-says-talks-underway-on-U.S.-nuclear-operations-planning, (Date of Accession: 04.01.2023).

[2] “NAIPTO-Toward a Eurasian, Transoceanic Multilateral Collective Defense Alliance”, Hudson, https://www.hudson.org/foreign-policy/naipto-toward-a-eurasian-transoceanic-multilateral-collective-defense-alliance, (Date of Accession: 04.01.2023).

Dr. Cenk TAMER
Dr. Cenk TAMER
Dr. Cenk Tamer graduated from Sakarya University, Department of International Relations in 2014. In the same year, he started his master's degree at Gazi University, Department of Middle Eastern and African Studies. In 2016, Tamer completed his master's degree with his thesis titled "Iran's Iraq Policy after 1990", started working as a Research Assistant at ANKASAM in 2017 and was accepted to Gazi University International Relations PhD Program in the same year. Tamer, whose areas of specialization are Iran, Sects, Sufism, Mahdism, Identity Politics and Asia-Pacific and who speaks English fluently, completed his PhD education at Gazi University in 2022 with his thesis titled "Identity Construction Process and Mahdism in the Islamic Republic of Iran within the Framework of Social Constructionism Theory and Securitization Approach". He is currently working as an Asia-Pacific Specialist at ANKASAM.