(PatriotWise.com) – While tensions with North Korea are rising, President Joe Biden stated on Monday that the United States and South Korea are not discussing conducting joint nuclear exercises.
While North Korean leader Kim Jong Un referred to the South as its “undoubted enemy,” South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said that Seoul and Washington are debating the possibility of conducting joint exercises using U.S. nuclear assets.
When reporters at the White House asked if he was currently talking about joint nuclear exercises with South Korea, Biden replied, “No.
Jake Sullivan, his national security adviser, had just returned from a vacation in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Following a year of a record number of North Korean missile tests and the entry of North Korean drones into the South last week, Yoon called for “war preparation” with an “overwhelming” capability. His comments were made in a newspaper interview that was published on Monday.
In an interview with the Chosun Ilbo newspaper, Yoon stated, “The nuclear weapons belong to the United States, but South Korea and the United States should jointly conduct planning, information sharing, exercises, and training.”
Yoon was quoted in the newspaper as saying that Washington was also “quite positive” about the idea and that the joint planning and exercises would be aimed at more effective U.S. “extended deterrence implementation.”
The ability of the American military, particularly its nuclear forces, to thwart attacks on American allies is referred to as “extended deterrence.”
According to Thomas Countryman, the former acting undersecretary of state for arms control who presided over the dialogue’s first meeting, the United States has had an extended deterrence dialogue to discuss nuclear issues with Japan for a long time and started a similar conversation with South Korea in 2016.
In a phone interview on Monday, Countryman said, “It’s not immediately clear what in President Yoon’s statement is new and what is a rephrasing of things that are already happening.”
According to Countryman, who is currently board chairman of the Arms Control Association, Yoon’s remarks, directed at the South Korean people, appeared to respond to what Countryman called North Korea’s provocations and rhetoric.
I believe President Yoon and the Biden administration are trying to reassure the South Korean government and people that the United States remains committed to them.
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