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The US will send a nuclear submarine to visit South Korea for the first time in four decades as part of a new deterrence arrangement between Washington and Seoul that is bound to draw the ire of North Korea.
The arrangement, set to be formalized by President Biden later Wednesday, is being described by the White House as the most significant of its kind since the Cold War.
Dubbed the “Washington Declaration,” it is designed to “strengthen US deterrence commitments” to South Korea in the face of persistent nuclear threats from their northern enemy, a senior White House official said late Tuesday.
“We intend to take steps to make our deterrence more visible through the regular deployment of strategic assets, including a US nuclear ballistic submarine visit to South Korea, which has not happened since the early 1980s,” the official said.
The understanding will mark the climax of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol‘s official state visit to the White House Wednesday.
“[We] will strengthen our training exercises and simulation activities to improve the US-[South Korea] alliance’s approach to deterring and defending against [North Korea’s] threats including by better integrating [South Korean non-nuclear] assets into our strategic planning as part of the alliance’s effort to strengthen deterrence and manage concerns about nuclear non-proliferation in the region,” the official said.
