The Peter Zeihan Podcast Series - South Korea and the US Make a Nuclear Deal || Peter Zeihan

Episode Date: December 3, 2025

The US and South Korea have struck a deal for the US to help build nuclear-powered submarines for the Koreans. The US has kept this technology close to the chest for a long time, with the access list now a whopping two countries long: Australia and South Korea.Join the Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/PeterZeihanFull Newsletter: https://bit.ly/484AVgO

Hey, Peter Zine here, coming to you from Colorado, and today we're going to talk about something that happened last week. We have a new agreement between the South Koreans and the Americans for the Americans to build and help build nuclear-powered submarines for the South Korean Navy. And this is really interesting now. The United States generally keeps a very tight lid on this technology. It was first developed in the 1950s, and it is the core for all of our ballistic and attack submarine. fleets. The big difference between a conventional sub and a nuclear sub is a conventional sub has to basically service for air every once in a while and has a limited range and a limited duration of mission because it always has to come back and get more fuel, whereas a nuke sub

can basically stay under indefinitely and regularly runs at least six-month missions. It's really more an issue of the crew going completely bat-shit crazy because they've been underwater for so long rather than a technical restriction. and, of course, food stores, things like that. To date, there's only a half a dozen countries that have nuclear power subs. Most obvious one is the United States, of course. And the only country recently that we have promised to assist with this technology are the Australians. And the Australians being basically a continent and being a long way away from anything that might be a security threat,

it does make some security sense for them to have nuke subs. But for South Korea, South Korea, no. South Korea is the size of Indiana, and its primary security threat is. North Korea, which is right next door across the demilitarized zone. There is no, no, no military rationale for the South Koreans to develop a nuke sub to basically loiter nearby, unless. You see, nuke subs are good because you can do two things. Number one, you can strike from silence, but North Korea doesn't have a functional Navy, so who cares? Or you can store a well weapons platform offshore for months at a time. Now, in a conventional fight with conventional

missiles, an offshore sub is a very limited use. I mean, the United States every once will launch with some tomahawks, but that's like a once a year event, if that. And it's not the sort of thing that would really change the math in a Korean conflict. But something to consider about the South Koreans is every few years, they accidentally enriched some uranium up to near weapons grade levels. And then the IA, that's the International Atomic Energy Commission, which is supposed to regulate nuclear technology, comes in, slaps the South Koreans on the wrist, and they're like, oh, sorry, that it was accidental. We're never going to do that again, and then it happens again in a few years. Basically, what the South Koreans have been doing

for the last 40 years is making sure that if they ever need to, they can make a nuclear weapon on a relatively short time frame, measured in weeks. And now, if they're going to have nuclear-powered subs. That means in a relatively short time, probably under a year, they could have nuke missiles on those subs. What the South Koreans have now achieved is American sponsorship of what in a few years will now be a South Korean nuclear program. Whether this is good or bad really depends upon your point of view. The idea that the South Koreans need a deterrent versus North Korea, I mean, that makes a lot of sense. The idea that the idea that South Koreans would like a way to go up to the Chinese and punch above their weight.

That makes a lot of sense. But there is no way that one country in Northeast Asia adds nukes to their arsenal and the other countries don't do the same thing. So I have always been concerned that when push comes to shove, it will be Japan that moves first, or Taiwan because of the threat of invasion. Now it looks like it might be the South Koreans, but as soon as one of them get them, the other two are going to have to have them. So this decision, might, from a certain monochromatic point of view, increase South Korean security. But it's going to come at the cost of introducing an arms race to the broader region at the same time that the United States are stepping back. Whether that is genius or pure idiocy is

something that history will tell us, and maybe just within the next few years.