North Korea's nuclear ambitions and provocations are pushing more South Koreans to raise the once unthinkable: developing their own nuclear deterrent, analysts said Monday.South Korean politician Chung Mong Joon of the governing Saenuri, or New Frontier Party, indicated that the South may have to look into a nuclear deterrent given that North Korea is acting like "a gangster."
The South Korean newspaper Joong Ang Ilbo suggested in an editorial that the U.S. "nuclear umbrella" may not be enough. Although the South is a signatory to the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons treaty, which means the country cannot legally develop nuclear weapons, the newspaper says the North's threats mean new defenses must be considered.
"Nuclear weapons can be stopped only with nuclear weapons, as in the mutual assured destruction that prevented a nuclear conflict during the Cold War," it said.
Bruce Klingner, former deputy chief for Korea in the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence under President Bill Clinton, says a nuclear South is a "non-starter."
A nuclear-armed South Korea could cause Japan, a U.S. ally that has tense relations with South Korea, to go nuclear, too, creating unnecessary instability in the northeast Asia region, Klingner said. Besides, he said, South Korea since the end of the Korean War in 1953 has had the same assurances that the United States would defend it that Western Europe has had since the end of World War II.
So lemme get this straight: NKor, which is led by a family of lunatics, gets nuke weapons. But SKor, which is usually rational, shouldn't get them because that would make Japan, also usually rational, get them, too. Instead they should both rely on the U.S. "nuclear umbrella," which is under the control of B.O., who could give a projectile crap whether SKor and/or Japan get nuked as long as his party picks up seats in the next election. Y'gotta hand it to "Some." The guy's a genius. Of sorts.