By Euan Graham*
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has pulled off a diplomatic coup by persuading US President Donald Trump not only to assist South Korea’s nuclear submarine ambitions but to abandon decades of US resistance to Seoul applying nuclear power for military purposes.
Among the news from this week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Gyeongju, South Korea, Trump’s 30 October announcement that he had approved South Korea’s request to construct nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs) with US technical assistance was the most surprising. (From: The Strategist. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute.)
