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U.S. not to redeploy tactical nukes in S. Korea
WASHINGTON, Dec. 27 (Yonhap) -- The United States does not have any interest in redeploying tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea due to the enhanced mobility of its weapons system and the South Korean public's antipathy toward nuclear weapons, a scholar said Monday."In an age of jet aircraft and intercontinental missiles, we don't need to forward-deploy nuclear weapons," Jeffrey Lewis, director of the Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative at the New America Foundation, said in a contribution to the Web site of "38 North," specializing in North Korean affairs. "Putting U.S. nuclear weapons back into South Korea is a dumb idea."
The removal took place as South Korea and North Korea signed an agreement calling for denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and inter-Korean rapprochement. The U.S. then withdrew its global forward deployment strategy. Kim's remarks were quickly withdrawn by the presidential office, Cheong Wa Dea, and the Defense Ministry, but spawned heated debate on the issue. Nuclear-armed North Korea has made a series of provocations in recent months, including the sinking of South Korean warship and shelling of an island near the western sea border and made repeated threats of a nuclear war. Lewis took note of the Bush administration's pledge to "deploy nuclear-armed Tomahawk missiles aboard attack submarines" and the Obama administration's commitment to "making a new fighter, the F-35, nuclear-capable and keeping the ability to forward deploy nuclear-capable B-2 bombers to Guam." "The United States Air Force has absolutely zero interest in forward deploying tactical nuclear weapons," the scholar said. "Ask any Air Force officer about the 180 gravity bombs the United States still keeps in Europe. He'll tell you that they should have gone home years ago. South Korea doesn't have the facilities to handle forward-deployed gravity bombs and a U.S. support unit would need to be established and deployed." Lewis also noted the South Korean public "remains ambivalent about South Korea's close relationship with the United States." "South Korea is a vibrant democracy, which is a good thing," he said. "That vibrance, however, often expresses itself in the form of riots, sometimes directed at the United States and its military forces stationed in South Korea." Lewis said any redeployment of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea would be dumber than allowing Seoul to have its own nuclear weapons. "Why not let South Korea have some totally useless nuclear weapons?" he asked. "As manifestly stupid ideas go, is it any dumber than the U.S. nuclear weapons stationed in Turkey with no evident means of delivering them?" The U.S. maintains a nuclear cooperation agreement with South Korea that bans Seoul from enriching uranium or reprocessing spent nuclear fuel for fear of Seoul making nuclear bombs. Late South Korean President Park Chung-hee sought a clandestine project for the development of nuclear weapons in the 1970s to cope with military threats from the North after the U.S. took steps to reduce its troops in Korea. Park's ambitions were thwarted by the U.S., which successfully pressured France and Canada to refrain from helping South Korea build nuclear reactors capable of producing weapons-grade material. A report of the U.S. Joint Forces Command said in February, "Several friends or allies of the United States, such as Japan and South Korea, are highly advanced technological states and could quickly build nuclear devices if they chose to do so." Posted by: Steve White 2010-12-28 |
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