Last week’s ICE raid on South Korea’s Hyundai battery plant in Georgia, along with Russia’s 19-drone violation of Poland’s sovereign airspace, are testing America’s nuclear security ties with NATO and South Korea.
In the attached Washington Examiner piece, “We need a better plan for nuclear non-proliferation,” I argue that, with any bad luck, these incidents could be something far worse—pretexts for our closest allies to go their own way and, in time, to go nuclear.
If so, it could get messy. Certainly, if South Korea acquires nuclear arms, Japan might follow, perhaps joined by Australia and by Saudi Arabia and its neighbors. If Poland goes nuclear, Germany may well follow suit, along with Ukraine. Any of these steps will strain American alliance relations. None would help keep Russia, China, Iran, or North Korea on their heels.
To check such anarchy, I make four recommendations. First, actively support our NATO and Asian mutual security treaties rather than cast them as transactional burdens. Second, stop pushing the export of particularly dangerous nuclear energy projects (e.g., fast reactors, and other power plants that require the use of nuclear fuels that can quickly be diverted to make bombs).
Third, stick to our current tough line against nuclear fuel-making in Iran and make it a general principle for other nuclear power–hungry nations that lack nuclear weapons. Fourth, and closely related, enforce the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty not only against Iran, but other would-be violators.
As always, I’m curious to get your take.
As Ever,
Henry S.
September 23, 2025
By: Henry Sokolski
We need a better plan for nuclear non-proliferation
Last week, President Trump tried to patch over ICE’s forced deportation of more than 300 South Koreans readying a Hyundai battery plant in Georgia. He offered to let them stay and train Americans. But, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung was having none of it. He declined the offer and voiced hesitancy to invest further in the United States.
Meanwhile, half-way around the world, President Trump downplayed Russia’s brazen 19-drone strike on Poland, suggesting it might have been a “mistake.” Polish prime minister Donald Tusk publicly rejected this characterization.
It’s easy to minimize these trials as normal alliance relations noise spikes. They’re not. They’re straws on the camel’s back of slipping relations, catalysts for these nations’ to act on their previous musings to go nuclear.
Among the top requests the South Korean President made in his August 25th White House visit was for South Korea to make its own nuclear fuel. Seoul already is cooperating with Bill Gates’ natrium fast reactor project, a plant originally designed to run on weapons-usable plutonium-based fuels. It now wants to recycle plutonium – a dangerous nuclear weapons-related activity.
South Korea has long been gaming to get its own nuclear weapons. In 2023, Former President Yoon Suk Yeol even floated the idea of acquiring nuclear weapons of its own, even though South Korea is a signatory of The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). In 2021, he proposed to build nuclear submarines and enrich uranium to fuel them.
Making nuclear fuel, though, is the very not-so-peaceful nuclear activity that prompted our bombing of Iran. Might the White House nonetheless honor Seoul’s fuel-making requests? President Trump told Lee Jae Myung he was open to discussing it.
What if President Trump agreed and opened the door to South Korea going nuclear? For better or worse, Japan would have to follow suit. What then? Australia had a nuclear weapons program in the late 60s. Taiwan had one too. Vietnam recently announced its intent to develop nuclear energy. Might they get nuclear weapons too?
Like Poland and Germany, whose leaders also have voiced an interest in acquiring nuclear weapons, these Pacific states are worried that America may treat its “ironclad” security assurances as it has with Ukraine.
What’s needed to dampen this nuclear proliferation kindling?
First, support America’s mutual security treaties with NATO, Japan, and South Korea as if they’re win-win propositions, rather than burdens. Certainly, if our allies go nuclear, they may go their own way even if – nominally – they still maintain formal U.S. ties. America can hardly afford such alliance ambiguity will hardly be helpful if America wants to keep Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea on their heels.
Second, stop pushing the export of “peaceful” nuclear energy that is anything but. Reactors whose fuels can be quickly converted to make bombs should be dropped from America’s nuclear sales pitch. Fast reactors, which can easily be reconfigured to produce significant amounts of high-quality weapons plutonium, should be off its sales manifest, as well as other reactors that use dangerously-close-to-weapons-grade uranium.
Third, make Iran a nonproliferation poster child rather than simply a bombing target. The administration is right to call out Iran’s desire to make nuclear fuel as “enabling nuclear weaponization.” It needs to stick to this principled gun, particularly as it begins negotiating a nuclear cooperative deal with Saudi Arabia who has demanded America help it enrich uranium. We shouldn’t.
Finally, although it is tempting to question the NPT’s value, the administration should try something different — enforce it. The place to start is Iran and its threats to withdraw from the treaty. If Iran, an NPT violator, is able to leave, as North Korea did, with impunity, others will follow this model. That could include South Korea, Japan, and NATO members.
The alternative, of course, is to let go and bug out. Trump wants to make a deal with North Korea. He could do so, let South Korea confederate with the North, and encourage Seoul to go nuclear. In the short run, this might work. In the long run, it’s a prescription for nuclear chaos, starting with most of our key allies following Seoul’s example and going nuclear themselves.
None of this is necessary. The Trump administration has taken a sound, tough stance with Iran. It now needs to follow through to assure Iran won’t become a model for other non-weapons states to follow.
To read the full piece, click here.