October 5, 2024: Last year South Korea declared its intention to develop and manufacture nuclear weapons due to North Korea’s growing stocks of nuclear weapons plus its growing political instability, and increased doubts about the United States' commitment to defend South Korea. This decision followed the cancellation of a 2018 agreement with North Korea which had reduced mutual surveillance. South Korea views North Korea as increasingly unstable and potentially reckless.

North Korea is temporarily prospering by selling weapons and munitions to Russia, which has provided much-needed cash and food. Previously, North Korea faced significant unrest due to poor economic conditions. In contrast, South Korea is an economic powerhouse, one of the top ten economies globally, and a major manufacturer and exporter of modern weapons.

North Korea has continued missile tests, causing concern in Japan, which has increased its defense spending. Diplomatic negotiations between North and South Korea have stalled since 2019. South Korea's wealth and technical capabilities have led to strong international alliances and trading partnerships, particularly in East Asia.

South Korea is militarily superior to North Korea, with significantly higher defense spending and advanced weaponry. South Korea has developed submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and built sophisticated submarines, indicating its capacity to produce nuclear weapons if necessary. Meanwhile, Japan and South Korea are among the top ten defense spenders worldwide, with Japan significantly increasing its defense budget. North Korea's recent weapons production mainly supports its arms trade with Russia. The U.S. withdrawal of nuclear warheads in 1991 and the subsequent treaties have not stopped North Korea from developing nuclear weapons.

Overall, South Korea's economic and military capabilities far surpass those of North Korea, and it continues to strengthen its defense in response to perceived threats from the North. For example, in 2023 South Korea declared it will develop and manufacture nuclear weapons. The cause of this is the growing instability of North Korea and doubts about the United States fulfilling its pledge to attack North Korea with nuclear weapons if the North attacks South Korea with nukes. South Korea currently sees North Korea as less stable and more prone to reckless actions against the south. This change in attitudes came after November 2023 when South Korea canceled a 2018 agreement with North Korea that reduced the surveillance and spying, they've been carrying out against each other for the past 70 years. South Korea took a closer look at North Korean military activities and concluded that North Korea might be tempted to emulate the recent Hamas attack on Israel and back it with the threat of using nuclear weapons.

This is a dangerous form of diplomacy, and it is unclear if North Korea was contemplating such a thing. Now North Korea is temporarily prospering by selling weapons and munitions to Russia in return for cash and much-needed food. This is good news for the North Korean government, which until last year was facing more popular unrest due to poor economic conditions and not enough food. Last year Russia sought to buy weapons and munitions from North Korea to supply their troops in Ukraine. More orders followed and soon this was visible on satellite photos of increased activity on the Trans-Siberian railroad.

It is unclear if North Korea was planning to risk its newly acquired prosperity with an attack on South Korea. Yet this is what South Korea feared and that’s why they canceled the 2018 treaty and resumed surveillance of North Korean military activities. All they could see was increased activity in weapons and munitions factories with most of that production being shipped to Russia. Since 2019, South Korea has not been able to get the North to negotiate about anything.

Not all the new weapons production is sent to Russia. North Korea is keeping its ballistic missile production going and testing more of them with launches into the waters between Korea and Japan. This frightens the Japanese, who note that most of these missiles seem to work and are not fired at their maximum ranges. While North Korea is pleased with this, Japan is also acquiring more Ballistic Missile Defense or BMD systems. Last year Japan increased its annual defense spending 26 percent, to $52 billion a year. This is about 1.4 percent of GDP and the largest Japanese defense budget ever. It is also the sixth year that Japan increased defense spending and the goal is to eventually reach two percent of GDP. Japan and South Korea are now spending about the same amount on defense and both are in the top ten defense spenders in the world. The others are the United States, China, Russia, India, Saudi Arabia, Britain, Germany, and France. South Korea is number nine, spending a little more than Japan at number ten.

Militarily, South Korea is a superpower compared to North Korea. This is obvious when you consider annual defense spending. While the United States accounts for about 40 percent of worldwide defense spending, China, and Russia together only account for about 17 percent. The rest of the top ten are either allies of the Americans or friendly. Ukraine is, in terms of total defense spending that includes donations from NATO countries, figuratively in the top five when it comes to defense procurement. This is a dubious distinction for Ukraine, which is using everything it has to repel a Russian invasion. South Korea has profited from this because NATO member Poland, which borders Ukraine and Russia, has increased defense spending, and purchased nearly $15 billion worth of South Korea weapons and munitions. South Korea produces a lot more weapons and military equipment than the north and the southern weapons and munitions are top grade. One side effect is that once Poland receives all the South Korean tanks, mobile artillery, and rocket, guided and unguided launchers from South Korea, they will have the most powerful army in NATO Europe. This is to discourage any Russian attacks on Poland or any other NATO nation in the area.

South Korea fears that their more numerous and effective weapons and munitions are not having the desired effect on North Korea. Since the 1990s South Korea has become an economic powerhouse and one of the top ten economies in the world. Because of that South Korea has more friends and trading partners in East Asia than Russia does. South Korea has the wealth and technical skill to build nuclear weapons and reliable ones at that. Russia believes that offending South Korea is a bad idea while disappointing North Korea creates no new problems.

Then there are the earlier South Korea efforts to keep nuclear weapons out of the Korean peninsula. The Americans have already taken the lead in this. In 1991 the United States withdrew all its nuclear warheads from South Korea and managed to get the two Koreas to agree not to develop and deploy nuclear weapons. This included both Koreas signing the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT. North Korea went ahead and developed nuclear weapons anyway, even though it was obvious that South Korea could do the same and produce more reliable nuclear warheads and more effective submarines to launch them from. When North Korea violated the agreement, South Korea went ahead and produced SLBMs (Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles) with conventional warheads launched from South Korean designed and built submarines. Since 2014 South Korea has been building nine 3,300-ton KSS-III submarines, each able to carry six or ten locally developed SLBM ballistic or cruise missiles with a range of up to 3,000 kilometers. These missiles can carry nuclear warheads instead of the high-explosive ones they currently have. Two of these subs are in service with another two entering service in 2024 and 2026. North Korea realizes they could not develop and build anything similar. South Korea has a growing fleet of locally built submarines that can carry ballistic or cruise missiles.

Most South Koreans now approve of building nuclear warheads, just in case North Korea foolishly makes a serious threat to use such missiles against South Korea or any other country. This made North Korea realize that the economically more powerful and technically more accomplished south not only can outproduce the north when it comes to any type of weapon, but has actually done so many times and is now a major producer and exporter of modern weapons. South Korea is not impressed with North Korean threats to attack them with devastating effect. The north can attack, but the south can retaliate with far greater destructive force. That is why the north continues to issue threats that South Korea ignores.

The south was not always the major military power, and the current situation is a relatively recent development. There is another complication, much of this traced back to the Korean War that began in 1950 when the overconfident north invaded. The fighting went on until 1953 when both sides agreed to an armistice, not a peace treaty. The combat forces remained in place to avoid a revival of fighting. This created the 250 kilometers long DMZ, a four kilometers wide demilitarized zone, which became the border between North and South Korea.

Since 1953 South Korea has become democratic, industrialized and it now has a GDP that is in the worldwide top ten. South Korea also became a major manufacturer and exporter of modern weapons. That included over ten billion dollars’ worth of weapons to NATO countries that border Russia or Ukraine. North Korea held onto its socialist ways and was misruled by the Kim dynasty. On a per capita basis, South Koreans are twenty times wealthier than the average North Korean. North Korea does have some nuclear weapons, but the Kim’s have not yet found a way to turn that into an improved standard of living for the average North Korean.

South Korea has been expanding its arms production since the 1990s and now, because of demand from NATO nations that sent a lot of weapons to Ukraine, South Korea is poised to enter the Top Five.

Big Brother China is openly losing patience with its unruly neighbor. China is, literally, North Korea’s economic lifeline. China is the primary or only source for essentials like petroleum, food, and all sorts of smuggled goods, past a long list of international sanctions. China will tolerate a lot of bad behavior in return for obedience and maintaining order along the Chinese border. North Korea failed in both categories.

Everyone looks to China because Korea has traditionally been a Chinese responsibility and, most of the time, a difficult one. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has obediently gone to China several times since 2018 to receive advice. Kim also met with the leaders of South Korea and the United States. So far lots of the right words but little action. China and everyone else fears that North Korea is going to try and scam its way out of another tight situation and risk the very real wrath of China while doing it. Inside North Korea the official word is that the nuclear weapons are essential and not negotiable. Unofficially, more North Koreans want a change of government or a way to get out. Meanwhile South Korea continues to visibly prosper, with GDP per capita that is more than 20 times larger than North Korea. Being caught viewing videos of life in South Korea or South Korean video entertainment, is now a capital offense in North Korea.