Why Asia wants more nuclear weapons – thanks to Russia’s war in Ukraine

Security experts say the daily example of Russia tearing apart non-nuclear Ukraine is pushing Asia’s non-nuclear states to consider getting their own weapons

Polls show that 3 out of every 4 South Koreans want Seoul to develop its own nuclear programme. An ex-Singapore official asked: ‘What are the alternatives?’

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South Korean and US missiles on display at the Korea War Memorial Museum in Seoul. Asia’s non-nuclear states are looking to lessons from the war in Ukraine as they consider pursuing weapons programmes of their own, experts say. Photo: AP

Published: 11:31am, 22 Jun 2022Updated: 12:16pm, 22 Jun 2022

Corrected [12:14pm, 22 Jun, 2022]

[12:14pm, 22 Jun, 2022]
An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified Bilahari Kausikan as a former foreign minister of Singapore. The story has been amended to reflect that he was a permanent secretary of Singapore's foreign ministry.

The headlines on the news-stands in Seoul blared fresh warnings of a possible nuclear test by North Korea.

Out on the street, 28-year-old office worker Lee Jae-sang already had an opinion on how to respond to Pyongyang’s fast-growing capacity to launch nuclear bombs across borders and oceans.

“Our country should also develop a nuclear programme. And prepare for a possible nuclear war,” said Lee, voicing a desire that a February poll showed was shared by three out of four South Koreans.

It’s a point that people and politicians of non-nuclear powers globally are raising more often, at what has become a destabilising moment in more than half a century of global nuclear non-proliferation efforts, one aggravated by the daily example of nuclear Russia tearing apart non-nuclear Ukraine.

Asia’s non-nuclear states are not immune to that reconsideration. The region is home to an evermore assertive North Korea, China, Russia and Iran – three nuclear powers and one near-nuclear power – but is unprotected by the kind of nuclear umbrella and broad defence alliance that for decades has shielded Nato countries.

Vulnerable countries will look to the lessons from Ukraine – especially whether Russia succeeds in swallowing big pieces of the country while brandishing its nuclear arsenal to hold other nations at bay – as they consider keeping or pursuing nuclear weapons, security experts say.

Ukrainian soldiers look on as tank fires at Russian positions in the front-line city of Sievierodonetsk. Photo: Reuters

As important, they say, is how well the US and its allies are persuading other partners to trust in the shield of US-led nuclear and conventional arsenals and not pursue their own nuclear bombs.