Why I have confidence in Nuclear Consultative Group

Ahn Ho-young

President Yoon Suk Yeol attended the NATO summit held in Washington, D.C., July 9-11. On the occasion of the summit, Yoon had one-on-one meetings with the leaders of seven countries, and discussed issues of the defense industry, supply chain, semiconductors and nuclear energy. Important progress was made to further strengthen security and economic cooperation with those countries. In fact, the discussions led to Korea winning its bid for a Czech nuclear power project. On top of all of these, an important agreement was signed to implement the Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG) formed in April last year on the occasion of Yoon’s state visit to the U.S.

Presidents Yoon and U.S. President Joe Biden had a separate meeting in Washington and endorsed the tremendous progress that the two countries had achieved in the first year of the NCG, as evidenced by the signing of the ROK-US Guidelines for Nuclear Deterrence and Nuclear Operations on the Korean Peninsula. According to Korea's Ministry of National Defense, the U.S. extended deterrence to Korea, which used to be limited to “deterrence,” now extends to “operations” in times of crisis and contingency thanks to the signing of the guidelines. It was also stated that the Korea-U.S. alliance has now evolved to become a “nuclear-based” alliance. I agree with those statements.

First of all, it is because of the contents of the guidelines. The guidelines provide for the allocation of the kind of U.S. strategic assets depending upon the nature of the contingency. Korea will provide conventional support to U.S. nuclear operations in a contingency through conventional-nuclear integration. The presidents of Korea and the U.S. will communicate immediately in case of crisis and contingency on the Korean Peninsula. On such a basis, the two countries will conduct exercises, simulations, training and risk reduction practices. A major concern undermining Korean citizens’ confidence in the U.S. extended deterrence has been the perception that it is a one-way commitment from the U.S. to Korea over which Korea does not have any voice. The guidelines remove such a concern by ensuring that extended deterrence will be provided through “joint planning and joint implementation” between the two countries.

The NCG commands a high level of attention in the right places in the U.S. government. On the occasion of my visit to the U.S. in late June, I had the opportunity to meet with a large number of former and present military leaders and scholars dealing with the U.S. nuclear strategy. Many of them took note of a recent speech made at the Arms Control Association by Pranay Vaddi, senior director for Arms Control, Disarmament, and Nonproliferation at the National Security Council. They highly appreciated the speech as the one setting down a clear marker in the history of U.S. nuclear strategy. In that historic speech, Vaddi spoke at length about the NCG and emphasized the importance of the arrangement in the U.S. nuclear strategy.

The NCG commands high attention in the U.S. Congress as well. There is a bill that Congress must pass every year for the budget for the U.S. military, which is the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). For that reason, it is called as a “must-pass” bill. In this year’s deliberations on NDAA, senators paid high attention to the important role played by the NCG, how the NCG was agreed upon and how it is being implemented. The senators’ interest in the NCG will be taken note of by U.S. officials working on the group.

The NCG provides a more dependable deterrence than NATO-style nuclear sharing in the context of the Korean Peninsula. Under the NATO arrangement, tactical nuclear weapons are widely spread and stored on the ground in five NATO member countries, namely Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Turkey. An apparent issue with the arrangement is that the weapons are vulnerable to enemy attacks. Such vulnerability would be only more acute in the terrain like South Korea’s, which is geographically far tighter than Western Europe’s.

In case of the NCG, the strategic assets allocated for Korea include the nuclear triad of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and strategic bombers, significantly reducing the risk of vulnerability. The ultimate decision to use U.S. nuclear weapons can be made only by the president of the U.S. The same principle applies to either the tactical nuclear weapons deployed in Europe or the strategic assets allocated for Korea.

One determining factor for maintaining extended deterrence, whether through NATO-style nuclear sharing or the NCG, is confidence between and among the allies. The critical issue thus comes down to how to maintain the confidence as allies between Korea and the U.S. in the strategic environment undergoing tumultuous changes.

Ahn Ho-young is a chair professor at Kyungnam University. He served as Korean ambassador to the United States and vice foreign minister.