For the first time in decades, the United States is sending nuclear-armed submarines to South Korea to help protect against rising threats from North Korea and Kim Jong Un.
President Joe Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeul are expected to sign an agreement Wednesday that will see ballistic missile submarines from the U.S. docked in South Korea for the first time since the early 1980s, according to multiple reports.
According to the Associated Press, the submarines are "a key element of what's being dubbed the 'Washington Declaration,' aimed at deterring North Korea from carrying out an attack on its neighbor."
CNN cited a Biden administration official who said the submarines are meant to send a clear message as North Korea ramps up its challenges.
"What the United States and the [Republic of Korea] plan to do at every level is strengthen our practices, our deployments, our capabilities, to ensure the deterrent message is absolutely unquestioned and to also make clear that if we are tested in any way that we will be prepared to respond collectively and in an overwhelming way," the official told CNN.
In the event of the North attacking the South, the U.S. would remain operational control of the nuclear weapons, per the AP report.
The submarines also will not be stationed permanently, and there is "no plan" to deploy any tactical nuclear weapons to the Korean peninsula, according to CNN.
The action is intended "to reassure the South Korean public" that the U.S. still has its back, Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, California, told NBC News.
The move comes as North Korea has been publicly ramping up efforts to further develop and test new weapons. Two weeks ago, the country test fired a newly-developed intercontinental ballistic missile that Kim Jong Un said was meant to "strike extreme uneasiness and horror" in its adversaries. The solid-fueled missile known as Hwasong-18 can be launched quicker and is harder to detect that missiles propelled by liquid fuel, and is capable of delivering multiple nuclear warheads. The first-of-its-kind test deployment was North Korea's 12th missile launch of the year, according to CNN.
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