An American nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) has surfaced in South Korea, marking the first such visit since the 1980s.
The development coincides with the beginning of talks by the two allies on co-ordinating their response in the event of a nuclear war with North Korea.
“As we speak, an American nuclear submarine is making port in Busan today. That’s the first visit of American nuclear submarine in decades,” Kurt Campbell, the White House’s Indo-Pacific co-ordinator, told reporters in Seoul as the nations held their first Nuclear Consultative Group discussions.
SSBNs rely on stealth to ensure their survival and preserve their ability to launch nuclear missiles during a war, rarely making public stops in foreign ports.
“To strengthen deterrence against North Korea, Washington and Seoul are increasing co-ordination of military capabilities, planning and intelligence,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, adding that the visit was expected.
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An agreement signed in April paved the way for American nuclear-armed subs to visit South Korea, after heightened tensions surrounding North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and repeated missile launches by the reclusive communist state. The Washington Declaration called for deeper military co-operation including dispatching a nuclear sub to the area to “further enhance the regular visibility of strategic assets to the Korean peninsula”.
The South Korean defence ministry identified the submarine as the USS Kentucky, an Ohio-class SSBN. The United States navy has 14 SSBNs, often referred to as boomers. Ohio-class submarines carry 20 Trident II D5 missiles, each of which can deliver up to eight nuclear warheads to targets as far as 7,500 miles away.
There were regular visits by SSBNs to South Korea in the 1970s — another period when the country was debating the strength of America’s commitment to the region and the need for its own nuclear arsenal, according a report by the Federation of American Scientists.
In what analysts described as a “dress rehearsal”, last month the nuclear-powered USS Michigan — once of four Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarines which have been converted to carry up to 152 Tomahawk cruise missiles — made a port call in Busan. Ohio-class subs are the largest in the US navy.
On Sunday, the US, South Korea and Japan staged missile defence drills in international waters between South Korea and Japan. The exercises featured three destroyers equipped with the automated Aegis Combat System for destroying targets. The drills were held after North Korea fired a Hwasong-18 solid-fuel ICBM a few days before. The weapon is believed to be capable of striking anywhere in the continental US. It flew for about 74 minutes, the longest yet for a North Korean missile, according to Japan’s defense ministry.
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After the drills, Kim Yo-jong, sister of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un, said the US should avoid any “foolish act” that would threaten its security and rejected the possibility of talks. She said the planned sub visit to the South would make Pyongyang less receptive to discussions. “Today, ‘denuclearisation’ is an outdated word to be found only in a dictionary of dead words,” she said, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
President Yoon of South Korea was elected last year having pledged to push for US nuclear subs, bombers and aircraft carriers to be sent to the region. Earlier this year he said South Korea was considering developing its own nuclear arsenal.
American nuclear-armed subs were regular visitors to South Korea during the Cold War but a US official said in April that the Biden administration had no plans for “returning tactical or any other kind of nuclear weapon to the Korean peninsula” on a permanent basis.
