This re-posts an article I wrote for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists recently on N Korea’s likely first-use of nuclear weapons in any serious Korean contingency.

The University of Pennsylvania invited me to participate in two-day forum on nuclear weapons back in September. This is the short paper I brought. Here it is at BAS.

My core argument is that NK will go nuclear almost immediately because: 1. It faces a very intense use-it-or-lose-it dilemma. 2. It can’t hope to win conventionally. 3. Any conflict almost immediately become existential for it.

No one really quite knows what to do in response. Missile defense doesn’t work well enough to guarantee that we can shoot down all their inbounds. And sanctions can only slow NK down, not stop their nuclear march. So my suggestion is to start deconcentrating US forces on the peninsula – to more and smaller US bases – so that they are not such a juicy hostage-taking target.

But that runs directly counter to what we have been doing here for the last decade or so – concentrating US forces in a few super-bases like Camp Humphreys. That may make logistical and financial sense. But it offers huge, inviting, clustered targets of Americans for NK to threaten or strike.

And if they NKs do nukes a US base in East Asia and kill thousands of Americans, the pressure on POUTS to massively retaliate will be enormous. And if we respond by nuking NK, the potential for spiraling escalation, including possibly China is high.

Below is my original, pre-edited and more technical version of my paper:

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) has large incentives to a use a tactical nuclear weapon (TNW) – or several – early in another conflict on the Korean peninsula. Deciding how to respond to this is probably the most important contemporary debate inside the US-Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea) alliance.

This paper suggests strategic responses to this challenge because it assumes a deal on DPRK weapons of mass destruction (WMD) is highly unlikely. A bargain which controls North Korean WMD would, of course, be ideal. But the most likely window for a breakthrough was during the overlapping ‘dovish’ presidencies of American President Donald Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-In, and it has closed. For a brief moment, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un faced the most negotiation-interested leaders in the history of his country’s primary geopolitical opponents, the US and South Korea. Trump particularly was a unique American president regarding the DPRK, willing to meet Kim repeatedly without preconditions. Tragically, Kim forewent this Trump-Moon opportunity in 2018-2020. So the North Korea debate in the democratic world – particularly South Korea, the US, and Japan – has reverted to traditional hawkish approaches. If North Korea will not bargain – or, more specifically, if it will only propose deals so balance-negative for the allies that they reject them immediately – then the allies must consider military responses to the likelihood of North Korean first use.

This paper has two sections. First, I elaborate three reasons for likely North Korean first use:

– Operationally, Pyongyang will face an intense WMD ‘use-it-or-lose-it’ dilemma as soon as a war starts.

– Strategically, its conventional military is quite inferior to the forces ranged against it.

– Grand strategically, any serious conflict between the two Koreas will quickly become existential for the North.

Second, I suggest two responses to this difficult challenge:

– At the time of attack, the allies should respond with nonnuclear retaliation as long as politically feasible, in order to prevent further nuclear escalation. However, this will be difficult given the likely post-strike panic and hysteria, so…

– In preparation, the US should deconcentrate its northeast Asian conventional footprint, to reduce North Korean opportunities to nuclearly blackmail regional American clusters, and to reduce potential US casualties and consequent massive retaliation pressures.

North Korean First Use Incentives

The DPRK will probably use nuclear weapons first in a major conflict for three reasons:

1) Operationally, North Korea will likely have only a very short time window in a conflict to use its WMD. The Americans will almost certainly try to immediately suppress Northern missiles. An imminent, massive US-ROK disarming strike creates an extreme use-it-or-lose-it dilemma for Pyongyang. If Kim Jong-Un does not use his nuclear weapons at the start of hostilities, most will be destroyed a short time later by allied airpower, turning an inter-Korean conflict into a conventional war which the North will lose. Frighteningly, this may encourage Kim to release his strategic nuclear weapons immediately too, as they likely also be destroyed momentarily.

2) Strategically, North Korea’s conventional military is almost certainly insufficient against alliance capabilities. The (North) Korean People’s Army (KPA) is large but technologically outdated. Sanctions limit the North’s production and fuel reserves. The country’s chronic malnutrition likely affects its soldiery’s health and fitness. Allied air supremacy would expose DPRK military assets to intense, immediate bombardment. Allied superiority in logistics, communications, intelligence, surveillance, and so on would be tremendous.

The North leverages its proximity to South Korea’s center of gravity, the massive Seoul-Kyeonggi-Incheon corridor of northwestern South Korea. This area is uncomfortably close to the demilitarized zone, and the KPA is flush against the border in order to threaten it. But this conventional countervalue threat – particularly the well-publicized artillery threat to Seoul – does not undermine ROK military capabilities. The South Korean military would likely win a Korean-only conflict, and with American assistance, the DPRK’s defeat would be crushing.

North Korea’s dysfunctional economic model, compounded by sanctions, make catch-up impossible. Closing that gap is an obvious reason for the North’s construction of WMD, and North Korea has unsurprisingly talked up TNWs and their use. Without them, the North would lose the war, and strategically, using them sooner rather than later – before the KPA starts to lose on the battlefield – would be its best move.

3) Grand strategically, nuclear first use is the Kim regime’s best chance at personal survival in a war. Defeat would bring regime change, if not annihilation, for the Kims. This is a critical difference between North Korea, and China and Russia. Russia has probably not used nuclear weapons in Ukraine because the war is not existential. A defeat there is not an offensive threat to the Russian state, territory, or regime of President Vladimir Putin. Similarly, if China were to be defeated around Taiwan, that would not lead to an invasion of the mainland or national collapse. Neither Ukraine nor Taiwan have revisionist intentions against their opponents. South Korea and its American ally do.

The ROK constitution claims sovereignty over the entire Korean peninsula. A conventional second Korean war would open the possibility of national unity as the KPA was defeated on the battlefield and the South Korean army moved north. Nationalist hopes throughout the peninsula would soar. And for America, the opportunity to finally rid itself of one of its worst adversaries – to push for final victory on Southern terms – would be hugely tempting.

Hence, any serious Korean conflict would quickly become existential for Kim regime and its state. The incentive to launch first – to deter or slow a march northward by the victorious allies – would be tremendous. China might assist the North, per their alliance, but that relationship now is transactional not affective. Escalating to deescalate – using TNWs with threats of further strikes unless the allies stop – would likely be the Kims’ best chance to prevent a catastrophic defeat.

In short, North Korea has massive first use incentives. If it will not bargain to reduce its stockpile, then fashioning an agreed alliance response is critical. And the alliance should do it now. The first wartime use of a nuclear weapon since World War II will likely ignite global panic and terror. That would be a terrible, heated time to think through the allied response. There will be immediate calls for revenge in kind, if not massive retaliation. That would threaten a major US-North Korean nuclear exchange – because North Korea also has intercontinental ballistic missiles and seeks to put them on submarines – and a chain-gang of other regional players into the conflict.

How Should South Korea and the US Respond?

This paper suggests two allied responses – contemporaneous and preparatory – to this tough dilemma:

1) At the time of attack, the US should respond conventionally, not nuclearly. The political pressure to retaliate in kind, or with even greater nuclear force, will, of course, be tremendous, particularly if there were American casualties, which is likely given South Korea’s high population density in its limited habitable space. But there are many reasons why this would be a mistake:

a) The US and South Korea would likely retain conventional superiority despite a DPRK TNW strike. North Korean limited nuclear war options are not necessarily battlefield-decisive. Military necessity would probably not exige nuclear retaliation, so as long as North Korean nuclear use remained limited to tactical strikes.

b) Operationally, nuclear blasts would irradiate the battlefield, making it harder for allied forces to advance northward and finish the conflict. Adding US-created blast zones to those created by the North would worsen the problem. The Korean peninsula is 70% mountainous and only 150-200 miles wide. So the relevant battlespace – mostly between the west coast and the peninsula’s mountain spine – is already narrow; more nuclear blast zones would constrain allied maneuver even further.

c) US nuclear restraint would help swing global opinion – particularly in China and Russia – behind an allied victory. China and Russia oppose Korean unification. They will be tempted to intervene in a conflict to save their valuable spoiler with a long record of distracting their American competitor. Northern nuclear use would dramatically alter that calculus, encouraging Beijing and Moscow to remain neutral or even assist an allied victory out of sheer fear over North Korean behavior. US nuclear retaliation would override that re-evaluation.

d) Conversely, US nuclear use in Korea might chain-gang China and Russia into the war. As the Ukraine War demonstrates, a major conventional conflict involving a nuclear power can be geographically contained. A second Korean war need not spiral out of control. But US nuclear use near China and Russia would pressure both to intervene to save the DPRK from elimination.

e) US nuclear strikes would substantially worsen the reconstruction burden on a post-unification ROK. Blast zones from Northern nuclear strikes would be costly to rehabilitate; US ones too would only add to the load. That South Korea has revisionist intentions on North Korea – that it wishes to absorb it – substantial alters the cost-calculus of American nuclear use. The aggressor would have to pay to decontaminate and rebuild the defender, which is not an element of US nuclear thinking regarding traditional opponents like China or the USSR/Russia.

2) Before the attack, the allies should prepare by deconcentrating America’s northeast Asian force structure, for two reasons:

a) North Korean will likely make immediate nuclear missile threats against regional concentrations of Americans to constrain US options in a Korean contingency. US military bases in South Korea and Japan – especially a very large, proximate site like Camp Humphreys – present obvious missile targets for the North. They concentrate US citizens and assets; missile defense is not assured; they can be taken hostage with missile strike threats.

Russia’s nuclear weapons have kept NATO from deeper involvement in the Ukraine War; the DPRK will likely try the same in Korea by threatening US east Asian bases. If North Korean nuclear blackmail can block, or at least slow, US assistance to South Korea, then Pyongyang’s chances of victory – coupled with TNW use against the ROK army – rise.

b) Mass US nuclear casualties would place nearly irresistible pressure on the US president to respond with nuclear weapons. Congress and the public would be outraged and demand retribution. America’s tendency to geopolitically overreact, and to use extraordinary levels of force in conflicts, is well-established. The larger the US death toll, the greater would be the domestic call for massive retaliation. That could spark a regional nuclear chain-gang.

Traditionally, US soldiers in South Korea were a ‘tripwire.’ Their early deaths in a war would ensure an enraged American public and Congress, and thus a commitment to fight on South Korea’s behalf. This was probably valuable alliance reaffirmation in the era of conventional inter-Korean competition. But in today’s nuclearized and missilized peninsular environment, that tripwire both constrains US options – by presenting obvious missile-hostage threats – and portends a spiraling regional confrontation after a likely American overresponse. Recently, the US has been concentrating its South Korean basing for logistical reasons. Inadvertently, in this Korean missile age, the US is also offering attractive missile targets to the North.

Unresolved Issues

This essay broaches only a few of the many strategic problems broached by North Korea’s spiraling, unchecked nuclear and missile program. All this will worsen as North Korea builds a submarine-based deterrent, improves its targeting with satellites, develops multiple-warhead missiles, and so on. Conventional deterrence in Korea may be stable but nuclear deterrence is probably not. A stable, enduring nuclear stalemate is unlikely in a dyad as asymmetric as North Korea and the US/South Korea.

Three further policy questions flow from the above analysis:

1. Should the allies launch a massive aerial disarming strike in a conflict? As discussed above, North Korea’s fear of that strike incentivizes its nearly-immediate first use. That, in turn, incentives exactly that immediate and large allied disarming strike. Each action responds to the other in worsening regressive spiral. The result is a hair-trigger balance, possibly ending in preemption.

2. Should South Korea build nuclear weapons? North Korea likely hopes that its nuclear weapons – particularly their countervalue threat to the American homeland – will blunt US assistance to South Korea in a conflict, much as oblique Russian nuclear threats have retarded NATO assistance to Ukraine. Direct local nuclear deterrence might stay North Korea’s hand by reducing its nuclear weapons ‘wedge’ between nuclear-but-distant America and nonnuclear-but-proximate South Korea. US objections to ROK nuclearization turn on the erosion of nonproliferation norms, but this is likely exaggerated.

3. Should the US and South Korea give up on unification? As discussed above, Southern revisionism – bolstered by massive inter-Korean economic and conventional asymmetries – makes any serious Korean conflict an existential one for Pyongyang. An existential threat is a good reason to build nuclear weapons. Surrendering South Korea’s pretension to unity might reduce North Korea’s perception that it must have nuclear weapons. South Korean progressives such as former President Moon seem willing to countenance this move to escape from the pressures sketched in this essay. The downsides are costly though: North Korea might not keep its denuclearization word; North Korea’s population would be lost to history’s worst orwellian tyranny; and the US-ROK alliance would likely fracture in obsolescence after an inter-Korea reconciliation.

Robert E. Kelly (@Robert_E_Kelly; RobertEdwinKelly.com) is a professor in the Department of Political Science at Pusan National University.

One of the great things about running a website about Korean Buddhist temples is that you get to meet a lot of amazing people. And a lot of these amazing people have varying backgrounds, interests, and insights. Rather amazingly, some of these people first visited Korea in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Here are their stories!

Q1: Where are you originally from? Introduce yourself a little.

A: I was born in Chicago in 1958 and grew up primarily in the Washington D.C. area. My father worked in Langley, Virginia at the CIA. My family moved to Okinawa, Japan in 1971, when I was 12.

We lived on a small American base called Camp Chinen. My dad traveled around the Far East for weeks at a time to places like Saigon, Singapore, the Philippines, Laos, and Malaysia. I didn’t know what he did or why he went to those places. I was turning 13 and not so interested in my parents, as I was into myself and boys. It was an idyllic time for me and one of my favorite childhood memories. But after one year, our base was shut down and we had to leave the island.  

Q2: When and why did you first come to Korea?

A: We moved straight to Seoul, South Korea in the summer of 1972, where we lived for the next three years on the Embassy compound, which was U.S.O.M. housing on the Yongsan army base. I went to the Seoul American High School for my freshman, sophomore and junior years. These, too, became the best years of my life. 

Q3: When you first came to Korea what city did you live? Did you subsequently move around?

A: Although my family lived in “little America,” as we called our base, I spent lots of time traveling with my friends and my sister all over the country. Unchaperoned! 

We would walk to the gate of our protected compound, take a cab ride to a bus stop, hop on a bus to the train station, get on a train and stay on until we saw a nice area for a picnic, get off the train, spend the day and do it all in reverse to be back home for dinner!

Imagine parents today letting their young teenagers do that even once. That’s how I spent all of my free time! Also, camping was a big part of my life in Korea. 

Q4: What were places you enjoyed visiting while in Korea?

A: The places I remember going, usually carrying a backpack and/or a tent with a group of friends, were Mt. Seoraksan, Mt. Namsan in Seoul, a dairy farm in the northeast mountains that was run by Americans, several Buddhist temples in remote locations that I can’t recall, and Jeju-do Island by ferry to name but a few. There were also the tourist places in and around Seoul that we went on field trips: Suwon Village, Gyeongbokgung Palace, and the Blue House (not inside!). We visited parks, hotels, restaurants, bath houses, shops and marketplaces. I learned to speak conversational Hangeul, which was enough to get around. Park Chung Hee (1917-79) was president, while we lived there. Billy Graham (1918-2018) came to Yeoui-do for a crusade, and I went to that. Some of the Pittsburgh Steelers (Super Bowl champions) visited the Yongsan base in some kind of world tour, and I met them. Bob Hope (1903-2003) came to Seoul on tour while we were there, and I saw him, too.

Q5: Did you remain in Korea or did you return home?

A: The Vietnam War ended before we left in 1975. I remember some guy running into the teen club, where I was sitting at a table playing a game of Spades, saying “The war is over,” and we all cheered. 

So, we moved back to the States for my senior year of high school, back to the same area. I graduated from Broad Run High School in Ashburn, Virginia. 

I ended up marrying a boy I had met in Korea. He lived in Jeonju as a missionary kid. We went back to visit after we were married and lived for six months with his parents. Our first child was born in a Jeonju hospital, the same hospital that my husband was born 21 years earlier. 

One of the great things about running a website about Korean Buddhist temples is that you get to meet a lot of amazing people. And a lot of these amazing people have varying backgrounds, interests, and insights. Rather amazingly, some of these people first visited Korea in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Here are their stories!

Q1: Where are you originally from? Introduce yourself a little.

A: I consider myself a native Californian, although I was born in Germany, while my father was a teacher on a U.S. Army base there.

Q2: When and why did you first come to Korea?

A: I developed an interest in Seon Buddhism starting at 17 years old, and I decided to enter a monastery for meditation practice. A friend had gone to Korea with Kusan Sunim (1908-1983), who had come to our hometown of Carmel Valley [California] to start the Sambosa Temple.

Q3: When you first came to Korea what city did you live in? Did you subsequently move around?

A: I went directly to Songgwangsa Temple; and after a few years, I traveled around a bit to explore other temples.

Q4: What was the first temple you visited in Korea?

Songgwangsa Temple

Q5: What drew your interest to Korean Buddhist temples? (Buddhism, architecture, art, history, etc)

A: Seon meditation

Q6: What is your favourite temple? Why?

Songgwangsa Temple is closest to my heart, but I really enjoyed Bongamsa Temple, also. The setting of Bongamsa Temple is very special and there was great energy for practice there.

Q7: What temple or hermitage has changed the most from when you were first here? What has changed about it?

Songgwangsa Temple had only recently gotten electricity when I arrived. There was wood for heating the ondol floors and the very small bath that everyone shared privately on bath day. Water had to be carried from the stone basins to use. Water was heated in the fire box of the ondol. No cars drove into the temple, you had to walk in from the little village below.

Q8: What was the most difficult temple to get to? How did you get there?

A: All the temples that were in the mountains, you had to walk in from the bus stop where there was often a small village. Some were very remote like Chilbulsa Temple on Mt. Jirisan, which required a long bus ride on a dirt rode, followed by a long hike on a narrow mountain path to reach.

Q9: Did you remain in Korea or did you return home?

A: I returned home in 1980, having been in Korea for 5 years.

Temple History

Geumgoksa Temple is located in northern Gangjin, Jeollanam-do in the foothills of Mt. Ilbongsan (411.8 m). According to some, Geumgoksa Temple was first founded during the reign of Queen Seondeok of Silla (r. 632 – 647 A.D.) by a Silla monk named Milbon. At this time, it’s believed that the temple was called Seongmunsa Temple. However, this story seems unlikely, as the land that Geumgoksa Temple is situated upon belonged to the Baekje Kingdom (18 B.C. – 660 A.D.). So it doesn’t make a ton of sense that a Silla monk would travel to Baekje Kingdom land to found a Buddhist temple.

Much later, and according to the “Donggukyeojiseungram,” which was compiled in 1481, the temple was finally referred to as Geumgoksa Temple. In 1592, Geumgoksa Temple was used as a training ground for part of the Righteous Army during the Imjin War (1592-98). Geumgoksa Temple was destroyed by fire during the Imjin War by the invading Japanese. The temple wouldn’t be rebuilt until Japanese Colonial Rule (1910-45) upon the former temple site. The temple would further be rebuilt and expanded in 1969. Then in 1984, Geumgoksa Temple became a Taego-jong Order temple.

As for the name of the temple, it’s called Geumgoksa Temple because there was a former gold mine in the area. In fact, there is a cave, whose depths are unknown, next to a stream near the temple grounds. This could be the source of the temple’s name.

Geumgoksa Temple is home to a Korean Treasure, the “Three-Story Stone Pagoda of Geumgoksa Temple,” which is Korean Treasure #829.

Temple Layout

You first make your way up towards Geumgoksa Temple through a couple of large boulders on either side of the road leading up to the temple. To the right of the temple parking lot is a serene stream. Up a large set of stairs, you’ll find the five metre tall “Three-Story Stone Pagoda of Geumgoksa Temple.” The large pagoda consists of a single-story stylobate at the base. Above the stout base is the body, which stands three-stories in height. Unfortunately, the finial which once adorned the top of the pagoda has been lost through the passage of time, and the pagoda has been damaged in part throughout. More specfically, the stylobate consists of four pillars at the edge with a flat stone between these pillars. This style of construction with corner pillars without a pattern engraved on it is similar to the “Five-Story Stone Pagoda at Jeongnimsa Temple Site” in Buyeo, Chungcheongnam-do. The first story of this pagoda, the “Three-Story Stone Pagoda of Geumgoksa Temple,” has a niche on all four sides. Typically in a wooden pagoda, the niche would function as a place to house an image of a Buddha. However, in a stone structure, it appears to be more decorative than anything. Overall, the pagoda has beautiful proportions. The “Three-Story Stone Pagoda of Geumgoksa Temple” was built during the Goryeo Dynasty (918-1392); however, it still retains some stylistic aspects from the Baekje Kingdom (18 B.C. – 660 A.D.).

Framing the “Three-Story Stone Pagoda of Geumgoksa Temple” is the Daeung-jeon Hall. The exterior walls to the Daeung-jeon Hall are adorned with fading Shimu-do (Ox-Herding Murals) and Palsang-do (The Eight Scenes from the Buddha’s Life). Of the two, the Shim-do are placed below those of the Palsang-do. At the front of the main hall, you’ll find two decorative dragons on either side of the signboard with long, white whiskers. There is also some beautiful floral latticework adorning the front of the Daeung-jeon Hall, as well. Stepping inside the main hall, you’ll find a triad of statues under a large, red canopy. Resting in the centre of this triad is an image of Seokgamoni-bul (The Historical Buddha). This central statue is joined on either side by Munsu-bosal (The Bodhisattva of Wisdom) and Bohyeon-bosal (The Bodhisattva of Power). On either side of the main altar are a pair of paintings. To the right is an image dedicated to Dokseong (The Lonely Saint); and to the left, you’ll find an image dedicated to Chilseong (The Seven Stars). To the left of the mural dedicated to Chilseong is a mural dedicated to Sanshin (The Mountain Spirit), who rests on the back of a rather large tiger. And to the right of the mural dedicated to Dokseong is a Jijang-bosal (The Bodhisattva of the Afterlife) mural. The final mural in the Daeung-jeon Hall is a Shinjung Taenghwa (Guardian Mural) hanging on the far left wall.

To the immediate right of the Daeung-jeon Hall is the Jijang-jeon Hall. The exterior walls to this shrine hall; which, rather surprisingly, doesn’t have a signboard above its central entranceway, are adorned with various murals that include an all-white Gwanseeum-bosal (The Bodhisattva of Compassion), as well as a set of murals depicting the life-cycle. Stepping inside this shrine hall, you’ll find an image of Jijang-bosal (The Bodhisattva of the Afterlife) on the main altar. This central image is accompanied by the Siwang (The Ten Kings of the Underworld).

To the left of the Daeung-jeon Hall, on the other hand, is the Cheonbul-jeon Hall. The exterior walls are adorned with murals dedicated to the Nahan (The Historical Disciples of the Buddha). The front doors to this shrine hall are adorned with cartoonish Gwimyeon (Monster Masks). Stepping inside the Cheonbul-jeon Hall, you’ll find a thousand green porcelain images of the Buddha. Resting on the main altar, and fronting these one thousand green Buddhas, is a large solitary image of Seokgamoni-bul (The Historical Buddha).

The final structure at Geumgoksa Temple that visitors can explore is the Jong-ru Pavilion out in front of the Cheonbul-jeon Hall. This wooden pavilion houses a large bronze bell. The other three traditional Buddhist percussion instruments are absent from this Jong-ru Pavilion.

How To Get There

From the Gangjin Intercity Bus Teriminal, you’ll need to take the “Nongeo-chon – 농어촌 6” bus or the “Nongeo-chon – 농어촌 12” bus. After 10 stops, or 15 minutes, you’ll need to get off at the “Geumgoksa – 금곡사” bus stop. After that, you’ll be right at the temple.

Overall Rating: 6/10

Geumgoksa Temple is beautifully located in the folds of the base of the mountain with a stream to the east. Besides its beautiful location, the obvious highlight to the temple is the Goryeo-era “Three-Story Stone Pagoda of Geumgoksa Temple.” While partially damaged, the three-story structure still exudes its original beauty. In addition to this welcoming pagoda, the main hall beautiful modern depictions of the three most popular shaman deities. Also have a look up at the signboard of the Daeung-jeon Hall at the large, whiskered decorative dragons.