South Korea has unveiled plans for an “arsenal ship,” a massive missile-laden vessel designed for land-attack missions against strategic targets such as command centers, logistics hubs, air defense sites, and military infrastructure.
This month, Naval News reported that the Republic of Korea Navy had announced that it had selected Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) for its Joint Firepower Ship concept, with plans to secure three of these vessels by the late 2020s, with each capable of carrying 80 missiles for pre-emptive strikes on North Korean military facilities in the event of an imminent missile attack.
The source notes that the ROK Navy plans to finalize the ship’s concept design, including the size, shape, missile capacity, and ROC (required operational capability), by year-end. Construction will proceed if the concept proves feasible in the subsequent design stage.
In terms of armaments, Naval News notes that South Korea’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) will invest US$467 million between 2024 and 2036 to develop a new ship-to-surface ballistic missile for the Joint Firepower Ship.
It also says the Joint Firepower Ship, the South Korean army’s Hyunmoo surface-to-surface missiles, and the air force’s Taurus air-to-surface missiles form a kill chain against North Korean threats.
However, the source notes that there has been conjecture on whether the navy should acquire the Joint Firepower Ship, which is relatively vulnerable to enemy attacks, difficult to defend, and easily detectable compared to submarines.
South Korea’s Joint Firepower Ships reflect its strategic constraint from being officially prohibited from having nuclear weapons due to being a signatory to the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and having a 1991 Joint Declaration with North Korea stating that both sides agree not to test, manufacture, produce, receive, possess, store, deploy or use nuclear weapons.
However, North Korea has blatantly violated the latter agreement, with six nuclear tests since 2006 and with Six-Party Talks regarding its nuclear program indefinitely stalled.
With that situation, South Korea has been developing conventional deterrents aside from the Joint Firepower Ship, such as aircraft carriers and conventionally armed ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs). It has raised the possibility of acquiring nuclear weapons.
Last May, Asia Times reported on South Korea’s CVX carrier project, which is planned to be built by defense giants Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI), LIG Nex1, and Hanwha Systems under supervision from UK defense company Babcock, which is a major contractor for the Royal Navy’s Queen Elizabeth-class carriers.
Design concepts revealed by Hyundai show that the CVX has an uncanny resemblance to the Queen Elizabeth carriers, notably the twin-island design.
Also, last month Asia Times reported that South Korea had upsized its CVX concept from a 30,000-ton to a 50,000-ton design, with the country dropping the initial smaller concept designed to carry 16 US-made F-35B fighters for a larger one from which the naval variants of its domestically developed KF-21 fighters can operate from.
Apart from aircraft carriers, South Korea is also considering building SSBNs. Last June, Asia Times reported on the United States’ and South Korea’s technology-sharing agreement for small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs), which could pave the way for Seoul’s long-standing SSBN ambitions.
Nuclear option
As early as 2003, South Korea was already planning to build SSBNs. However, the project was shut down the following year after the discovery that the project’s scientists had secretly enriched uranium, a capability critical for making nuclear weapons.
In addition to aircraft carriers and SSBNs, South Korea may be inching closer to getting nuclear weapons. This January, Asia Times reported on President Yoon Suk-yeol’s announcement that his country might consider building tactical nuclear weapons, with 1991 being the last year a South Korean president had raised that possibility.
Yoon said his country would introduce or build tactical nuclear weapons if the regional security situation worsened. Also, public support for South Korean nuclear weapons is strong, with 71% of South Koreans favoring having nuclear weapons and 56% supporting the deployment of US nuclear weapons in their territory.
But in the long run, South Korea may need to rely on more than US security guarantees and conventional deterrents to keep North Korea at bay.
As noted by Asia Times this February, building a strategic deterrent around conventionally tipped missiles may be equivalent to a “deterrence by denial” strategy.
This strategy entails constantly reminding Pyongyang that a showdown between itself versus the US and South Korea would result in the demise of the Kim regime via decapitation operations, involving pre-emptive and retaliatory strikes against North Korea to deter or end a conflict by killing its leadership.
However, that approach would keep all parties on a war footing, making pressured reactions more likely than deliberate responses, resulting in a reactive and fail-deadly strategy in the sense that a failed decapitation strike would push North Korea to use nuclear weapons.
It might also be expensive and self-limiting for South Korea, forcing its strategy to be centered on a one-war scenario and making the US pull punches on deploying its military capabilities.
Limitations of Joint Firepower Ships
Apart from the vulnerability concerns previously mentioned, it may be challenging for South Korea to maintain Joint Firepower Ships on-station around the clock, compared with land-based missile sites that can be held at constant readiness.
Also, South Korea’s large fleet of conventional submarines can launch missiles deep into North Korean territory, conducting the same mission as the Joint Firepower Ship at a lower cost while being more survivable.
Last April, South Korea successfully tested a new submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) from the ROKS Dosan Ahn Changho. However, SLBMs might be too expensive to be used with anything less than a nuclear warhead.
Given that, South Korea may already be well on its way to achieving nuclear latency, having the resources, technology, and know-how to set up a sea-based nuclear deterrent in short order, possibly rendering the Joint Firepower Ship redundant in the long run.