Top South Korean and US defense officials are discussing a possible rebasing of US tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea following Pyongyang’s latest missile launch.
Korea JoongAng Daily, quoting South Korean government sources, said Seoul is also asking the US for more “strategic assets” that might include procuring nuclear-powered submarines.
The moves were reportedly discussed when Defense Minister Song Young-moo, who is currently visiting Washington, met with US Secretary of Defense James Mattis and White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster on Wednesday.
“A possible return of US tactical nuclear weapons, South Korea’s procurement of nuclear-powered submarines, transfer of the wartime operational control from Washington to Seoul and revision of bilateral missile guidelines, which prohibit Seoul from developing advanced missiles, were among the topics discussed,” the sources told JoongAng Daily.
The H.W. Bush administration removed all US tactical nuclear weapons, including nuclear mines designed to stop a North Korean armored attack, from South Korea in the 1990s.
US Lt. General Jack Weinstein said in a March talk at New York’s Harvard Club that basing US nuclear weapons in South Korea could provoke North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to take extreme actions and might not be a good idea. Weinstein is the Pentagon’s “doomsday general” or Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Integration.
Also help Japan, Vietnam, and the Philippines to have nukes. China will be wiped off the face of the Earth
South Korea should rein in USA. Start by cancelling the annual military exeercises and removing all US bases and troops. Its economy is 100 times the size of North Korea and it has twice the population. It has a formidable military now capable of defending itself. It can equip it better if it purchases China and Russian arms. USA will keep trying to start a war in the Korean peninsula. There is no benefit to South Korea in preventing NK developing a strategic ICBM capability which is really US problem.