U.S. Guarantees Korea’s Nuke Security

South Korean Minister of National Defense Yoon Kwang-ung and U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld held the 38th annual Korea-U.S. Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) at the U.S. Department of Defense in Washington on October 21 at 2:00 a.m. (Korean time). After the meeting, the two adopted a joint declaration that guaranteed the U.S. “nuclear umbrella” over South Korea in detailed way.

According to the reports, the joint declaration includes the context, “If the nuclear threat posed by external forces on the Korean Peninsula becomes tangible, the threat will be aggressively dealt with by the U.S. nuclear umbrella.”

Also included in the joint declaration were the sentences condemning North Korea’s nuclear test conducted on October 9 in defiance of demand of international community and calling for the abandonment of the North’s nuclear program and additional nuclear tests.

South Korea and the U.S. made a “declaratory public pledge” that “the U.S. provide a nuclear umbrella over South Korea consistently” through joint declarations every year since the 11th SCM in 1978. In the joint communiqué adopted in the 37th SCM held in Seoul last year, it is also stipulated, “U.S. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld reaffirmed U.S.’s promise to provide a nuclear umbrella over South Korea consistently.”

However, since North Korea went its way with a nuclear test, South Korea and the U.S. have come to agree on the need of more specific, stronger promise of a nuclear umbrella.

To this end, by specifically stating nuclear crisis situation that can trigger the operation of U.S. nuclear umbrella at the joint declaration, the two nations warned North Korea that if the North does carry out its nuclear threat, U.S.’s formidable nuclear war fighting strength would be immediately mobilized to punish North Korea.

ysh1005@donga.com