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If North Korea uses its own arsenal, President Joe Biden and his South Korean colleague Yoon Suk Yeol warned, there will be a nuclear reaction and the “end” of the North Korean government.
The two leaders said the US security shield for South Korea was being strengthened in response to the nuclear-armed North’s provocative missile testing in a speech at the White House following Oval Office discussions during just the second state visit thus far under the Biden administration.
And they made it quite plain that a catastrophic reaction would be given if the isolated communist dictatorship in North Korea attacked either the South or the United States.
At a press conference with Yoon, Biden assured reporters that any regime that launched a nuclear assault against the United States or its allies would fall.
Yoon stated that achieving peace by “overwhelming force superiority and not a false peace based on the goodwill of the other side” was his top aim.
He declared that Washington and Seoul had made a deal to “respond swiftly, overwhelmingly, and decisively in the event of a nuclear attack from North Korea using the full force of the alliance, including US nuclear weapons.”
Yoon and his wife Kim Keon Hee arrived at the White House for a day of pomp and circumstance to which hundreds of guests and an honour guard from the military were invited. A spectacular state banquet in the old East Room was scheduled to conclude the proceedings.
The “Washington Declaration”
As South Korea grows more concerned about the saber-rattling in the north, Yoon and Biden released what was known as the Washington Declaration, strengthening the US nuclear shield over that country.
Yoon added that President Biden had “reiterated his unwavering commitment to extended deterrence towards the Republic of Korea.”
In the case of a North Korean strike, this will include a method for the two nations to communicate and consult with one another, even though US commanders will continue to have complete command of the nuclear arsenal. The conventional military of South Korea will likewise be more fully integrated with the nuclear forces of the US.
Under the condition of anonymity, a senior US official described the new structure as a reiteration of actions last seen when Washington managed the Soviet Union’s defence of Europe.
In contrast to the Cold War, when US strategic weapons were stationed in Europe, US officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, emphasised that there are no intentions to station nuclear weapons in South Korea.
Seoul also reaffirmed in the proclamation its commitment to refrain from developing its own nuclear arsenal.
Atomic submarine
The US official claimed the first steps would involve “regular deployment of strategic assets, including a US nuclear ballistic submarine visit to South Korea, which has not happened since the early 1980s.”
The person stressed that there will be “no basing of those assets and certainly not nuclear weapons,” but added that there will be a “regular cadence” of other significant platforms in addition to submarines, “including bombers or aircraft carriers.”
A US official stated that preparations are being made in order to ease potential tensions with Beijing over the more aggressive military stance.
Yoon will have lunch with US Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday before delivering a speech to a joint session of Congress. He will visit MIT and Harvard University in Boston on Friday before leaving for his own country on Saturday.
Yoon and Biden went to the Korean War Memorial on Tuesday, where there are life-size steel statues of US soldiers marching in the 1950–1953 conflict with the communist north.
While Harris and Yoon were touring a NASA site close to Washington, DC, Yoon also lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery.
