Trust in U.S. Nuclear Deterrence Weakening
The United States Congressional Research Service (CRS) said in its report on Sept. 8 that many allies of the United States will feel the necessity of having their own nuclear weapons if the nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence strategy of the United States cannot be trusted.
In the report on non-strategic nuclear weapons, which was updated on Sept. 6, the CRS said that South Korea and Japan are two of the countries that will be tempted to do so and this is because they are being threatened by neighboring countries armed with nuclear weapons, that is, China and North Korea.
The purpose of the report is to point out that the United States and Russia need to make efforts to increase the transparency of their non-strategic nuclear weapons. “For several years, some South Korean politicians have called for redeployment of non-strategic U.S. Nuclear Weapons to the Korean Peninsula and South Korea’s own nuclear capability development in response to North Korea’s nuclear weapon development and testing activities,” the CRS went on to say, adding, “This implies that they are regarding the United States’ security assurance measures as inadequate although this view is not being supported by the South Korean government.”
In the meantime, on Sep. 8, United States Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun urged North Korea to return to the negotiating table by saying in his lecture at the University of Michigan that the voices of those in favor of nuclear armament will be raised in Asian countries, mainly in South Korea and Japan, if the U.S.-North Korea negotiations fail.
“Like many other Asian countries, South Korea and Japan are already capable of developing their own nuclear weapons, and yet they stopped their programs because they trusted the nuclear deterrence provided by the United States,” he remarked, adding, “However, with their territories within the reach of North Korea’s short-range ballistic missiles, the trust will not last long.”