departmental bulletin paper

Departmental Bulletin Paper

Text

国際公共政策研究. 2023, 27(2), p. 23-42

The Failed Plan : South Korea’s Pursuit of Nuclear Weapons and the U.S. Nonproliferation Policy in the 1970s

Han, Kwanghoon

大阪大学国際公共政策学会

English

Text

2023-03

This paper studies the conditions under which South Korea ceased its attempts to acquire nuclear weapons. It seeks to answer the question: How did Washington persuade Seoul to give up its nuclear pursuits? Existing literature has thus far only discussed the U.S. influences on South Korea, but it has not fully explained how U.S. nonproliferation policies effectively prevented South Korea from going nuclear. This paper examines what policies were most effective in discouraging the development of nuclear weapons. The U.S. approached Canada and France to create a negotiating environment that made it easier to implement its nuclear nonproliferation policy. Then the U.S. promised technical cooperation in the nuclear field in a form in which South Korea would not have the capability to build nuclear weapons. The history of how the export control policy was implemented while promising technical cooperation in the nuclear field provides us with an important case study in how it may be possible to persuade today's nuclear-weapons-developing nations to give up their nuclear weapons. This paper has salience today, as North Korea has become a de facto nuclear weapons state through its continuous nuclear testing, meanwhile, many South Korean people are in favor of their country developing nuclear weapons. Reviewing the historical process of U.S. nonproliferation policies that helped prevent the South Korean program will help us determine what policies could effectively prevent nuclear proliferation in East Asian countries in the future.

10.18910/90174

90174

The Failed Plan : South Korea’s Pursuit of Nuclear Weapons and the U.S. Nonproliferation Policy in the 1970s

Han, Kwanghoon

大阪大学国際公共政策学会

English

2023-03

国際公共政策研究

27

2

23

42

https://hdl.handle.net/11094/90174

10.18910/90174

https://doi.org/10.18910/90174