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In an agreement described as historic, USA announced Wednesday that it will send South Korea a nuclear-armed submarine for the first time in 40 years. The fact is known in a context of incessant ballistic missile tests carried out since last year by a common enemy, North Korea.
The President of South Korea, Yoon Suk-yeol, made a six-day state visit to the United States. On Wednesday he was received at the White House by his counterpart Joe Biden. They both signed the Washington Declarationa defense pact aimed at deterring any attempted North Korean aggression.
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With Yoon by his side, Biden issued a stern warning: he said yes North Korea uses its nuclear weapons against the United States or its ally South Korea, it will be the end of the regime of kim jong un.
“Our mutual defense treaty is ironclad and that includes our commitment to further deterrence, and that includes the nuclear threat, nuclear deterrence.”Biden declared.
According to sources from the AP agency, the teams of Biden and Yoon finalized the details Washington Declaration for months and agreed that “very clear shows of force” and US deterrence should be a centerpiece of the text.
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The Washington Declaration try to calm the fear of South Korea by North Korea’s aggressive nuclear weapons program and preventing Seoul from resuming its own nuclear program, which it gave up nearly 50 years ago when it signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the AP reported.
The pact contemplates the sending of a submarine US nuclear to South Koreasomething that has not been done since 1981. In addition, information will be shared in the event of a North Korean attack.
There are no concrete plans to install US nuclear weapons in South Korea. Nor will Seoul be able to get theirs.
“One thing became clear: there is an implicit understanding that Seoul will not go nuclear,” Soo Kim, head of political practice at LMI Consulting and a former CIA analyst, told AFP. “A limit has been placed on Seoul’s nuclear ambitions,” she added.
The document also asks the armies of United States and South Korea to strengthen their joint training and better integrate South Korean military assets into the joint strategic deterrence effort.
Just a huge symbolic value
Regarding the shipment of submarinethe CNN chain indicated that it is a measure with enormous symbolic value, but without much effect in practice.
CNN reported that some experts question whether it makes sense as a military measure to send the submarinetaking into account that these are capable of attacking North Korea from thousands of miles away. Other analysts maintain that sending the submarine to a foreign port, publicly announcing the fact, only it compromises the effectiveness of a weapon that is designed to be stealthy.
While Cheong Seong-chang, from the Sejong Institute’s Center for North Korean Studies, told AFP that “it is doubtful that North Korea subject to a strategic nuclear submarine equipped with an SLBM (submarine-launched ballistic missile) with a range of more than 7,400 kilometers.”
The “too long” range of the submarine’s missiles could mean it cannot hit North Korea if it were in South Korean waters, he explained.
South Korea’s renunciation of nuclear weapons
According to the Federation of American Scientists, in the late 1970s, at the height of the Cold War, the nuclear submarines Americans with ballistic missiles made frequent visits to South KoreaSometimes two or three a month. At that time, the United States had hundreds of nuclear warheads located in South Korea, reports Univisión.
USA withdrew all of its nuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula in 1991. A year later, South and North Korea signed a joint declaration pledging that neither would “test, manufacture, produce, receive, possess, store , deploy or use nuclear weapons”.
But North Korea ended up violating that pact and is now a nuclear power.
What are the US submarines like?
The United States nuclear submarines capable of launching ballistic missiles are of the Ohio class. In total, the North American country has 14.
CNN explained that they measure 170 meters in length, have a displacement of more than 18,000 tons when submerged and work with a single nuclear reactor.
According to the United States Army, an Ohio-class submarine is designed to spend an average of 77 days at sea, followed by 35 days in port for maintenance.
They have two crews each, called “blue” and “gold”, which rotate so that the 155 divers in each crew rest and train properly between patrols, CNN reported.
Each Ohio-class submarine carries a maximum of 20 Trident II ballistic missiles. These have a range of 7,400 kilometers, which means they can reach a target in North Korea from vast areas of the Pacific, Indian or Arctic oceans.
“Militarily, these submarines don’t need to be anywhere near Korea to hit potential targets there,” Blake Herzinger, a researcher at the Center for US Studies, told CNN.
each missile trident It can carry multiple nuclear warheads.
Source: Elcomercio
I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.
