Imagine if the title was : "China Gives South Korea Green Light to Build Nuclear Submarines".
What would the comments here be like. No doubt a lot of nonsense about "the ccp" this and "the ccp" that.
Like obviously no matter the country, if you want to build weapons offshore in their territory you probably need permission.
That's the point. South korea is not allowed to build nuclear submarines in their own territory. They lack the sovereignty to do it. The US won't give them permission to build one on their own.
But you probably knew this and your comment is meant to distract.
Are you being intentionally dense? Why wouldn't they be building it in their own territory if nobody was stopping them?
Besides, I already replied to your other comment that South korea is not allowed to enrich uranium by the US.
Because they don't have the facilities to build a nuclear sub, and America does, since America has built over 200+ nuclear submarines in the past?
Building a nuclear sub, and fueling it, are two separate things.
Yes you are. An easy tell is "citation needed".
> there is no law
Another tell.
> If RoK wanted to spend a percentage of their GDP on enrichment facilities they could
And they have in the past. Guess who shut that down?
> They don't have an urgent reason to.
South korea is surrounded by 3 nuclear powers ( north korea, china, russia ) and militarily occupied by another nuclear power and yet, they have no urgent reason to? Good one.
> Why would RoK want their own enrichment facilities?
This is just absurd. Your questions answer themselves. And it's obvious you already know the answers but just are trying to distract.
You keep googling and I'll look for the citations. Okay buddy?
They actually could. This has been an ongoing discussion in South Korean politics for years. Nuclear Submarine shipbuilding is a large undertaking and it requires a lot of security to prevent sabotage in ways that other types of shipbuilding just don't have to put up with. So it is in many ways cheaper and more secure to just rely on the US for nuclear shipbuilding as we already have the infrastructure and we are on the opposite side of the world from any adversaries who would have interest in sabotage.
> Besides, I already replied to your other comment that South korea is not allowed to enrich uranium by the US.
This is not true. There are mutual agreements that set the limits on enriched uranium for military purposes but they are flexible agreements that can be renegotiated or broken off as needed. The US has them with everyone including our allies and our adversaries. It's essentially just a tool to say "hey you need to discuss this publicly within your country first before you can change it". Nothing more or less.
And the US has an agreement with South Korea that limits domestic production of fissile material for military uses but it's a mutual agreement that we have with a bunch of countries (including China) and is essentially always renegotiable as situations change. Essentially it's just an explicit agreement of how much material a given country intends on producing for the purposes of requiring public political discussions domestically before ramping up production.
That is all very much a flexible situation and the US doesn't have any actual power to legitimately stop South Korea from manufacturing domestic nuclear reactors for military purposes.
Countries like SK seem to let the US do the heavy lifting, including fighting major wars with them and for them, and in return they give the US considerable influence over international relations and military affairs.
Korea is an American suzerainty. Not vassal. Similar to North Korea:China. One of the strategic considerations in countering China in Taiwan is whether Japan and Korea would refused their territory from getting involved. That's a veto a vassal doesn't get.
Iran under the Shah was a U.S. vassal. Same for Ghani's Afghanistan. (Belarus: Russia.)
That's why north korea has nukes? South Korea:US is not analogous to North Korea:China. Neither is Pakistan:China analogous to South Korea:US. If you analogy held, south korea would be a nuclear power.
Stop commenting on things you know nothing about. Honestly, do you think you are an expert in every geopolitical topic?
When was that? After the Pacific War with Japan, the US had bases in SK (from driving Japan out of SK?). NK and eventually China invaded SK and the US defended them, and since then SK has given the US military bases in order to deter NK and China.
The treaty restricting Korea is the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons [1]. America is giving Seoul a loophole by offering to do the NPT-governed work.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Non-Proliferatio...
Fully agree that reading either for geopolitical opinions is useless.
The US won't allow south korea to enrich uranium on their own. Want to try again?
> I would recommend going beyond simply reading the headline.
Another intentional distracting comment.
190 nations have signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty. This includes China, so the very US vs China premise here is misplaced.
[The US, UK, France, Russia, China and 185 other countries] won't allow south korea to enrich uranium on their own
Who cares?
> This includes China, so the very US vs China premise here is misplaced.
Sure. But it wasn't china that stopped korea's and japan's secret nuclear programs. It was the US.
> [The US, UK, France, Russia, China and 185 other countries] won't allow south korea to enrich uranium on their own
Just like they prevented north korea...
Your response debunks your response. It's quite remarkable actually.
The only country that can prevent another country is the one militarily occupying it. China, France, Russia, UK and the other 185 countries don't militarily occupy south korea. The only reason north korea, israel, india, pakistan, etc were able to go nuclear is because they are not vassal states military occupied by a foreign power.
You don't understand why South Korea might care about nuclear proliferation?