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WASHINGTON – President Biden moved on Wednesday to strengthen America’s nuclear umbrella protecting South Korea and vowed that a North Korean nuclear attack would “result in the end” of the government in Pyongyang, stressing a broad shift from diplomacy to deterrence in response to the attack. the threat of a volatile dictatorship.
Hosting South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol at the White House for a state visit, Mr. Biden is committed to giving Seoul a leading role for the first time in strategic planning for the use of nuclear weapons in a conflict with North Korea. In return, the South disavowed any efforts to pursue its own nuclear weapons, a move Mr. Yoon briefly appeared to embrace earlier this year. Mr. Biden also announced that the United States will send an American nuclear ballistic missile submarine to dock in South Korea for the first time in decades.
“Look, a nuclear attack by North Korea against the United States, its allies or partisans – partners – is unacceptable and it will affect any regime that will do it,” Mr Biden said during a press conference in the Rose Garden, where he and Mr Yoon explained the agreement. , called the Washington Declaration. “It’s about strengthening deterrence in response to the DPRK’s escalatory behavior and a full consultation agreement” between the allies, Mr. Biden said, using the initials for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
While previous presidents have also warned North Korea that a nuclear attack on the South would trigger a devastating American response, blunt language about the end of the North Korean regime was similar to that of Mr. Biden’s bellicose predecessor, Donald J. Trump. Mr Trump has threatened North Korea “with fire and fury like we’ve never seen” if it were to attack.
Mr. Trump then pivoted 180 degrees to open private talks with Kim Jong-un, the North’s iron-fisted leader, and even announced that the two had “fallen in love,” but his talk never led to Mr. Kim giving up. weapon. And throughout Trump’s presidency, and into Mr. Biden’s, the North has accelerated the expansion of its nuclear arsenal and its various and varied ballistic missiles.
In public comments with Mr. Yoon on Wednesday, Mr. Biden did not leave out talk of a negotiated diplomatic resolution to the 30-year confrontation over North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. While saying they would still “seek serious and substantial diplomatic breakthroughs,” he and Mr. Yoon gave no path to doing so and instead emphasized plans for “longer deterrence,” implicitly acknowledging that North Korea’s nuclear weapons are an inevitable reality. reversed. anytime.
As part of the new agreement, the United States and South Korea will create a Nuclear Consultative Group to coordinate a military response to North Korea, and Washington has vowed to “make every effort to consult” with Seoul before using nuclear weapons to retaliate against the North.
However, the agreement states that the American president has the sole authority to decide whether to launch nuclear weapons. And Mr. Biden noted that beyond the largely symbolic submarine visit, he has no intention of deploying nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula. The United States withdrew the last tactical nuclear weapons from South Korea in 1991.
Mr. Yoon’s visit comes at a fraught moment between the two long-standing allies after a leaked disclosure made it clear that the United States had intercepted private conversations in South Korea’s National Security Council. Secret documents made public in recent weeks reveal conversations among South Korean officials about American pressure to supply artillery ammunition to Ukraine, despite Seoul’s policy of not providing arms to combatants in an active war.
While South Korea has provided humanitarian aid to Ukraine, it has not provided arms directly to Kiev. Seoul said it would consider selling the 155-millimeter cannon to Washington as long as the United States would be the “end user.” According to leaked documents, top South Korean officials discussed the possibility of selling shells to Poland under the same conditions, but knowing that they would be sent to Ukraine.
The two leaders sought to ignore the revelations on Wednesday, sidestepping questions as they celebrated 70 years of alliance between the two countries. Mr. Biden honored Mr. Yoon with the pomp and circumstance of a state visit, beginning in the morning with a lavish arrival ceremony that featured a 21-gun salute, an honor guard, a marching band and a fife and drum corps and ending in the evening with a full-size state dinner, ties black, only twice from the Biden administration.
“Our alliance is an alliance of values based on the universal values of our freedom and democracy,” Mr. Yoon said in an opening statement in the Oval Office before the meeting with Mr. Biden began. “This is not a contractual alliance” but an “eternal partnership.” Perhaps an allusion to the unrest over surveillance, he added, “Together we can solve any problem between us.”
Asked later about the leaked disclosure, Mr. Yoon offered only bland comments without any hint of anger or confusion. “We need time to wait for the results of the investigation by the United States,” he said. “And we plan to continue communicating about that.”
Mr. Biden did not comment on the matter, though he did mention a “shared commitment to stand with Ukraine and defend democracy against Russian attacks.” He called the American-South Korean relationship a “linchpin of regional security and prosperity,” adding that “I think our partnership is ready to face any challenge.”
The new cooperation agreement in the Washington Declaration is modeled closely on the way NATO countries plan for nuclear conflict. While the United States has never formally adopted a “no-first-use” policy, officials say the decision will almost certainly come after the North itself uses nuclear weapons against South Korea.
“The United States is making every effort to consult with the ROK regarding the possibility of nuclear employment on the Korean Peninsula,” the declaration said, using the initials for the Republic of Korea. At the same time, he said, “President Yoon reaffirmed the ROK’s longstanding commitment to its obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty” to refrain from developing its own nuclear weapons.
The deal is notable for several reasons. First, it aims to reassure the people of South Korea, where pollsters have found a consistent majority in favor of building an independent South Korean nuclear force. Mr Yoon himself openly pondered the option earlier this year, though his government quickly backtracked.
He also raised the possibility of reintroducing America’s tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea, a move his administration has said in recent weeks it is no longer pursuing.
The importance of the new declaration to Mr. Yoon was clear in the Rose Garden when Mr. Biden did not mention it clearly in his opening remarks, while the South Korean leader focused heavily on him. Mr. Yoon called it an “expansion and strengthening of the comprehensive deterrence strategy” and said the agreed response to the North Korean threat “has never been this strong.”
“Our two countries have agreed to direct bilateral presidential consultations in the event of a North Korean nuclear attack and pledged to respond quickly, overwhelmingly, and decisively using the full force of the alliance, including the United States’ nuclear weapons,” Mr. Yoon said. .
The second important reason is one of the things the Biden administration didn’t talk about: It would reverse the commitment, back to the Obama administration, to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in America’s defense strategy. For years, the United States has been increasing its non-nuclear strike options, increasing the precision and power of conventional weapons that can reach any target in the world within an hour.
John F. Kirby, spokesman for the National Security Council, said, “I would caution anyone from thinking that there is a new focus on the centrality of nuclear weapons,” despite the wording of the new declaration. “We have treaty commitments with the Republic on the peninsula,” he said, using an abbreviation for the Republic of Korea, and “we want to make as many options as possible.”
But the South is seeking greater assurances of “comprehensive deterrence,” the concept that the United States will seek to prevent a North Korean nuclear attack on the South with a nuclear response — even at the risk of a North Korean attack on an American city.
South Korea is a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which prohibits it from acquiring nuclear weapons. So the commitment not to make our own weapons is not new. But countries can withdraw from the treaty, only by notifying the United Nations. Only one country has done so: North Korea, in 2003. Three countries have not signed the treaty and have developed nuclear weapons: Israel, India and Pakistan.
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