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Notes
1 See entire speech text, Office of the President Republic of Korea, “尹 대통령, 외교부·국방부 업무보고 마무리 발언 관련 서면 브리핑 [Written Briefing on President Yoon’s Concluding Remarks on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of National Defense Work Report],” January 11, 2023, https://www.president.go.kr/newsroom/briefing/GvCftpuP.
2 Committee on International Relations, Investigation of Korean-American Relations: Report of the Subcommittee on International Organizations of the Committee on International Relations, U.S. House of Representatives (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978), 74-83, https://archive.org/details/investigationofk00unit/mode/2up; Jungmin Kang et al., “South Korea’s Nuclear Surprise,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 61, no. 1 (2005): 40-49, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.2968/061001011; William Burr, “Stopping Korea from Going Nuclear, Part I,” National Security Archive, March 22, 2017, https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/henry-kissinger-nuclear-vault/2017-03-22/stopping-korea-going-nuclear-part-i.
3 Toby Dalton, Karl Friedhoff, and Lami Kim, Thinking Nuclear: South Korean Attitudes on Nuclear Weapons (Chicago: The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, February 2022), https://globalaffairs.org/research/public-opinion-survey/thinking-nuclear-south-korean-attitudes-nuclear-weapons; and “Korean Perceptions toward the North Korean Nuclear Crisis and the Security Environment,” Chey Institute, January 30, 2023, https://www.chey.org/Eng/Issues/IssuesContentsView.aspx?seq=695.
4 Andrew Yeo, “Can South Korea Trust the United States,” Washington Quarterly 46, no. 2 (2023): 110.
5 Max Boot, “Should South Korea Go Nuclear? That’s a Decision for Seoul, Not Washington,” Washington Post, April 24, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/04/24/south-korea-ponders-nuclear-weapons-program/.
6 Cited in Yeo, “Can South Korea Trust the United States,” 110 and 118.
7 Ibid, 119; For other experts’ observation, see Frank Aum and Adam Gallagher, “Will the ‘Washington Declaration’ Deter North Korea?,” Analysis and Commentary, United States Institute for Peace, April 27, 2023, https://www.usip.org/publications/2023/04/will-washington-declaration-deter-north-korea.
8 Min-hyung Kim, “Is Non-Nuclearization Sustainable? Explaining South Korea’s Strategic Choices,” Washington Quarterly 46, no. 2 (2023): 128.
9 Eric Brewer, Toby Dalton and Kylie Jones, “Mind the Gaps: Reading South Korea’s Emergent Proliferation Strategy,” Washington Quarterly 46, no. 2 (2023): 142.
10 Ibid, 141.
11 The White House, “Washington Declaration,” April 26, 2023, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/04/26/washington-declaration-2/.
12 Cited in Boot, “Should South Korea Go Nuclear? That’s a Decision for Seoul, Not Washington.”
13 Cited in Yeo, “Can South Korea Trust the United States,” 118.
14 The survey sample encompasses Elizabeth Saunders’ definition of general and foreign policy elites; see Elizabeth N. Saunders, “Elites in the Making and Breaking of Foreign Policy,” Annual Review of Political Science 25 (2022): 219-240, https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-polisci-041719-103330.
15 Ibid.; Emilie M. Hafner-Burton, D. Alex Hughes and David G. Victor, “The Cognitive Revolution and the Political Psychology of Elite Decision Making,” Perspectives on Politics 11, no. 2 (2013): 368–386, https://www.jstor.org/stable/43280794; Ronald R. Krebs, Narrative and the Making of US National Security (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015); and Linda L. Fowler, Watchdogs on the Hill: The Decline of Congressional Oversight of US Foreign Relations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015).
16 For polls, see Dalton, Friedhoff, and Kim, “Thinking Nuclear: South Korean Attitudes on Nuclear Weapons” and “Korean Perceptions toward the North Korean Nuclear Crisis and the Security Environment”; For the echo chamber, see Doug Bandow, “Washington Might Let South Korea Have the Bomb,” Foreign Policy, January 17, 2023, https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/01/17/us-south-korea-nuclear-weapons-denuclearization/; and Seong-Chang Cheong, “The Case for South Korea to Go Nuclear,” Diplomat, October 22, 2022, https://thediplomat.com/2022/10/the-case-for-south-korea-to-go-nuclear/; and Kang Choi, “‘공포의 균형’이 대북 억제의 핵심”[‘Balance of Fear’ Is the Key to Deterrence against North Korea], Chosun Ilbo, June 21, 2022, https://www.chosun.com/opinion/chosun_column/2022/06/21/HR4TRS3IABFMTEIJHZ4JAEF5DU/.
17 The Korean Association of International Studies (KAIS) conducted an elite survey of South Korean academics on nuclearization and released the results in March 2023; See Tae-wha Kang, “전문가 55% ‘30년내 북핵 해결 불가능’ … 자체 핵보유 62% 반대” [55% of Experts Say, ‘It Is Impossible to Resolve the North Korean Nuclear Issue within 30 Years’ … 62% Oppose Own Nuclear Weapons], JoongAng Ilbo, March 24, 2023, https://www.joongang.co.kr/article/25149788.
18 Dasl Yoon and Timothy W. Martin, “South Korea’s Interest in Nuclear Weapons Hasn’t Gone Away—It’s Just On Hold,” Wall Street Journal, September 16, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/south-koreas-interest-in-nuclear-weapons-hasnt-gone-awayits-just-on-hold-7c91cf8a; Jean Mackenzie, “Nuclear weapons: Why South Koreans want the bomb,” BBC, April 21, 2023, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-65333139; Michael Mitsanas, “South Korea considers the nuclear option as external threats mount,” NBC, April 25, 2023, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/south-korea-north-nuclear-options-united-states-ballistic-missiles-rcna81171; “Why South Korea is talking about getting its own nukes,” Economist, January 19, 2023, https://www.economist.com/asia/2023/01/19/why-south-korea-is-talking-about-getting-its-own-nukes.
19 Kim Na-young, “Ruling party leader says calls for own nuclear armament boosted by N.K. provocations,” Yonhap, February 20, 2023, https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20230220004200315; Hyonhee Shin, “Exclusive: Seoul mayor calls for South Korean nuclear weapons to counter threat from North,” Reuters, March 12, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/seoul-mayor-calls-south-korean-nuclear-weapons-counter-threat-north-2023-03-13/; and Yulgok Kim, “South Korea Needs a New Nuclear Strategy,” National Interest, March 14, 2024, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/korea-watch/south-korea-needs-new-nuclear-strategy-210013.
20 Robert E. Kelly, “South Korea’s Nuclear Anxieties Haven’t Gone Away,” Foreign Policy, June 9, 2023, https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/06/09/south-korea-nuclear-weapons-north-korea-washington-declaration/; and Jennifer Lind and Daryl G. Press, “Should South Korea build its own nuclear bomb?,” Washington Post, October 7, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/should-south-korea-go-nuclear/2021/10/07/a40bb400-2628-11ec-8d53-67cfb452aa60_story.html.
21 Boot, “Should South Korea Go Nuclear? That’s a Decision for Seoul, not Washington.”
22 “Korean Perceptions toward the North Korean Nuclear Crisis and the Security Environment,” Chey Institute.
23 In the “I am not sure” group, 57 percent self-identified as conservative/moderate conservative; 30 percent as moderate; and 13 percent as progressive/moderate progressive.
24 “Disagree” is a score of 4 or 5 on an ascending scale of 1 (strongly agree) to 5 (strongly disagree).
25 “Agree” is a score of 1 or 2 on a descending scale of 1 (strongly agree) to 5 (strongly disagree).
26 Only 10 percent in the noncommittal category of nuclearization ranked nuclear sharing as least preferable while 67 percent ranked an indigenous capability as least preferred.
27 Adam Mount, “The US and South Korea: The Trouble with Nuclear Assurance,” Survival 65, no. 2 (2023): 124.
28 Kim, “Is Non-Nuclearization Sustainable? Explaining South Korea’s Strategic Choices,” 134.
29 Brewer, Dalton, and Jones, “Mind the Gaps: Reading South Korea’s Emergent Proliferation Strategy,” 142.
30 Yang Uk, “Is South Korea Going Nuclear?” Asan Institute and 38 North, February 7, 2023, https://www.38north.org/2023/02/is-south-korea-going-nuclear/.
31 Personal interview, March 6, 2024.
32 ROK Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Proliferation Security Initiative High-Level Meeting and Eastern Endeavor 23 on the 20th Anniversary of the PSI,” Press Release, May 24, 2023, https://overseas.mofa.go.kr/eng/brd/m_5676/view.do?seq=322200&srchFr=&srchTo=&srchWord=&srchTp=&multi_itm_seq=0&itm_seq_1=0&itm_seq_2=0&company_cd=&company_nm=.
33 “Nuclear Deal with U.S. Tightens Korea's Shackles,” Chosun Ilbo, April 27, 2023, https://www.chosun.com/english/opinion-en/2023/04/27/TTC4ZWUYMHGN2JUEPKTOZYAD5Q/.