South Koreans Increasingly Support Nuclear Armament Amid North Korean Threats

President Yoon Suk Yeol suggests South Korea could acquire nuclear weapons, while U.S. pledges to strengthen nuclear planning consultations and increase nuclear assets in the Korean Peninsula.

• A growing number of South Koreans are losing faith in America's vow to back its longtime ally, with frequent polls showing a strong majority of South Koreans — between 70% and 80% in some surveys — support their nation acquiring atomic weapons or urging Washington to bring back the tactical nuclear weapons it removed from the South in the early 1990s.
• North Korea's repeated threats to launch nuclear weapons at its enemies and its tests of missiles designed for pinpoint strikes on U.S. cities have made South Koreans lose faith in America's vow to defend their country.
• In January, conservative South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol broke a longstanding taboo when he said that his nation could “acquire our own nukes if the situation gets worse.”
• At an April summit in Washington, Yoon and President Joe Biden agreed on the Washington Declaration, in which Seoul pledged to remain in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a nonnuclear weapons state, and the United States said it would strengthen consultations on nuclear planning with its ally. It also said it would send more nuclear assets to the Korean Peninsula as a show of force.
• One of the poorest countries on Earth, North Korea may now have an arsenal of 60 nuclear weapons and has declared it is deploying “tactical” missiles along the Korean border, implying its intent to arm them with lower-yield nuclear weapons.

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