{"id":38096,"date":"2025-12-21T09:14:22","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T03:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/?p=38096"},"modified":"2025-12-21T09:14:22","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T03:29:22","slug":"us-submarines-are-outnumbered-in-the-pacific-south-korea-has-a-plan-to-help-seoul-south-korea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/us-submarines-are-outnumbered-in-the-pacific-south-korea-has-a-plan-to-help-seoul-south-korea\/","title":{"rendered":"US submarines are outnumbered in the Pacific. South Korea has a plan to help Seoul, South Korea"},"content":{"rendered":"
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CNN:<\/strong> South Korea wants to join the undersea naval elite \u2013 and has received the blessing of US President Donald Trump to do just that.<\/p>\n

Having Seoul become the seventh country in the world operating nuclear-powered submarines \u2013 joining the United States, Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom and India \u2013 could be a win-win.<\/p>\n

South Korea could more effectively counter North Korean or Chinese moves in the waters around the Korean Peninsula; and that would free up the US Navy\u2019s nuclear-powered attack subs to concentrate on patrols in hot spots like the South China Sea and the waters around Taiwan.<\/p>\n

On both sides of the Pacific, building the vessels could mean thousands of high-paying manufacturing jobs, helping the US and South Korean economies.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor South Korea, this would be a game-changer countering North Korea\u2019s undersea threat,\u201d said Yu Jihoon, a research fellow at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses and former South Korean submarine officer.<\/p>\n

Nuclear-powered subs \u201ccould transform South Korea\u2019s role within the alliance to be a more capable security provider, so the strategic implications for the South Korea-US alliance are even more significant,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

But, as is often the case in naval shipbuilding, the devil is in the details.<\/p>\n

Nuclear-powered submarines (SSNs) come with many advantages. They can stay submerged for long periods of time \u2013 essentially for years, if they can carry enough provisions for the crew \u2013 whereas most conventionally powered subs must surface for air to run diesel engines, which in turn charge their batteries for running at depth.<\/p>\n

They are also generally faster than conventionally powered subs and are in many cases quieter.<\/p>\n

Acquiring them has been a decades-long wish of the South Korean government.<\/p>\n

But Seoul has faced a key roadblock: under a decades-old nuclear agreement with the US, it is not allowed to reprocess spent nuclear fuel, despite having the technology to do so.<\/p>\n

Korean officials have discussed the issue with previous US administrations, but always behind closed doors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CNN: South Korea wants to join the undersea naval elite \u2013 and has received the blessing of US President Donald Trump to do just that. Having Seoul become the seventh country in the world operating nuclear-powered submarines \u2013 joining the United States, Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom and India \u2013 could be a win-win. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38096"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38096"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38099,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38096\/revisions\/38099"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}