The Washington Declaration signed by U.S. President Joe Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday should be a ringing reminder of one of the greatest achievements of U.S. national security strategy: its decadeslong success in preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The agreement strengthened nuclear deterrence coordination between the two allies and offered a greater sense of assurance that South Korea falls under the U.S. nuclear umbrella.
The Washington Declaration signed by U.S. President Joe Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday should be a ringing reminder of one of the greatest achievements of U.S. national security strategy: its decadeslong success in preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The agreement strengthened nuclear deterrence coordination between the two allies and offered a greater sense of assurance that South Korea falls under the U.S. nuclear umbrella.
Unfortunately, the agreement’s significance will be missed by many Americans who live in what has been called the United States of Amnesia. Like so much else about the international order today, many take for granted the fact that we now live in the 78th year since nuclear weapons were used in war.
After having survived the most dangerous crisis in recorded history—the Cuban missile crisis of 1962—U.S. President John F. Kennedy predicted a world in which there would be 15 or 20 nuclear states by the 1970s. That forecast reflected the conventional wisdom of the time that as states acquired the technical and economic base to build their own nuclear weapons, many would, and the world would see recurring nuclear wars, terrorist nuclear attacks, and anarchy.
Today, however, South Korea—like most wealthy nations—does not have its own nuclear arsenal. When he met with Biden, Yoon reaffirmed his country’s Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty commitment to remain non-nuclear and instead bet his country’s very survival on Washington’s promise to use its nuclear arsenal to deter nuclear-armed Pyongyang from attacking.
This is not because Seoul is incapable of developing its own nuclear weapons. Seven decades on, nuclear weapons are not exactly a frontier technology. Intelligence estimates indicate that North Korea, one of the world’s poorest countries, could have an arsenal of 40 nuclear weapons and a stockpile of fissile material from which it could make an additional hundred. But Pyongyang is, relatively speaking, an outlier—one of only nine countries known to have nuclear weapons.
What falsified Kennedy’s forecast and prevented the emergence of such a dangerous world? Among many factors, first and foremost has been a concerted, sustained, strategic campaign by U.S. administrations, both Democratic and Republican, to prevent nuclear proliferation. The agreement with Yoon is just the most recent nail that is keeping the lid on this box.
The U.S. strategy has consisted of five primary pillars: a robust U.S. nuclear arsenal sufficient to deter adversaries from attacking; the 1968 Nonproliferation Treaty in which 185 states have now committed to forgo nuclear weapons; U.S. “extended deterrence,” in which Washington has committed to use its nuclear arsenal to deter any attack on select allies; artful coercion of allies at moments when they have been tempted to go nuclear; and relentless opposition to states such as Iran that have sought to upset this regime. Yesterday’s agreement significantly strengthened the extended deterrence pillar of this strategy by creating a consultative group akin to NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group, bolstering South Korean involvement in U.S. nuclear statecraft.
This strategy has been extraordinarily successful. It has persuaded 95 percent of the world’s countries to accept a position in which other nations, including their deadly enemies, have nuclear weapons and they do not.
In Seoul’s case, it faces an existential threat from Pyongyang. After a bloody war, South Korea has been in a stalemate with North Korea for the past 70 years. Today, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un repeatedly threatens to attack with his million-man conventional force, extensive conventional artillery tubes that can effectively destroy the city of Seoul, and a growing nuclear arsenal that could erase South Korea from the map. North and South Korean troops face off regularly along their border, and North Korea engages in repeated provocations including kidnapping South Koreans, firing shells near South Korea, the sinking of a South Korean ship, and threatening to turn Seoul into a “sea of fire.”
But South Koreans have grown more anxious about the strength of U.S. commitments as North Korea’s huge investments in building not only nuclear weapons, but missiles that can deliver nuclear warheads to targets, pose an increasingly credible threat to the U.S. homeland. Yoon and his national security team have certainly asked themselves whether the United States would really risk Seattle to defend Seoul. And in answering that question, they have to think not only about Biden but about the possibility that America’s president in 2025 could be Donald Trump.
During the Cold War, many Europeans were haunted by similar questions. Standing as they did on the front line that separated the free West from the Soviet-led East, Germans repeatedly wondered whether the United States would really risk Washington to defend Berlin or Boston to defend Bonn. Such concerns cannot be dismissed or wished away.
The ongoing challenge for Washington, therefore, is to reassure allies like Seoul—as well as European allies that worry about nuclear threats from Russian President Vladimir Putin—that it really does have their backs. Doing this successfully requires extensive, candid conversations between presidents, militaries, intelligence communities, diplomats, legislators, and even citizens.
This is not a job that can ever be finished. Persuading allies that their best choice is to rely on a partner that can sometimes appear fickle is a challenge that Washington must address every day. In the case of Seoul, the fact that Washington continues to keep 28,000 troops in South Korea in an integrated U.S.-South Korean command that stands “ready to fight tonight” is foundational in that strategy. But yesterday’s announcement will provide additional reassurance.
For now, though, Biden and his national security team’s success in embracing their South Korean ally, respecting Yoon and his colleagues’ concerns, and taking concrete steps to persuade them that reliance on the United States is preferable to their alternatives is another big win for Team USA.
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