The folly of nuclear armament

[unhappycamper]

http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=2986117

Nuclear weapons and the alliance with the United States won’t guarantee Korea’s interests.

The folly of nuclear armament
Mar 11,2014
Moon Chung-in

“Will America’s Asian allies go nuclear?” This provocative question is the title of an article by David Santoro, a senior fellow who specializes in nonproliferation and nuclear security issues at the Pacific Forum CSIS. It was published in The National Interest’s February edition. His article triggered an unexpected controversy among nonproliferation experts and researchers on the alliance with the United States.

In his article, Santoro said voices in South Korean and Japan are calling for the creation of their own atomic weapons and moving beyond the nuclear umbrella provided by the United States. North Korea’s provocative behaviors, China’s aggressive rise and the weakening of the security pledge by America for the Asia-Pacific region, including defense budget cuts, prompted the arguments, he said.

Santoro then noted that South Korea and Japan both have the technology and financial resources to develop nuclear weapons, adding that Korea, based on its past, is particularly worrisome.

His argument is that the United States must not allow such a move, and that it should be resolutely prepared to end the alliances with them if they go nuclear. He claims that the geopolitical interests from the alliance can never come before the U.S. goal of the nonproliferation of nuclear arms and that allowing their development will only destroy the global nuclear order based on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.