Robert E. Kelly and Min-hyung Kim
South Korea has long relied on the United States to keep the North Korean nuclear threat at bay. Pyongyang began taking fitful steps toward a nuclear weapon during the Cold War, tested its first bomb in 2006, and today regularly issues nuclear threats against its southern neighbor. Seoul, meanwhile, shelters under the American nuclear umbrella that came with the defense alliance it signed with Washington in 1953, just after an armistice effectively ended the Korean War. For decades, this arrangement provided South Korea sufficient security assurance. But today, that assurance appears increasingly fragile.
South Korea’s problem is twofold. First, North Korea’s capabilities are growing. Pyongyang has developed an intercontinental ballistic missile, which raises doubts about whether the United States would honor its alliance commitment and fight for South Korea, because North Korea can now strike American cities with a nuclear weapon. Second, Donald Trump, who has harshly criticized the U.S.–South Korean alliance in the past, is set to begin his second term as U.S. president. Under Trump, the likelihood that Washington would intervene in a conflict on the Korean Peninsula will drop further still.
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