Vipin Narang: Why Seoul doesn’t need its own nukes to counter North Korea

This week, Dr. Vipin Narang joins the NK News podcast to unpack how the U.S. and South Korea are seeking to strengthen extended deterrence against North Korean threats under the joint Nuclear Consultative Group, a platform that he helped develop and lead as a key nuclear policy official under the Biden administration. Narang highlights how North Korea’s rapid nuclear expansion drove the creation of the NCG, which gives Seoul a structured role in deterrence planning, and he warns that the DPRK’s cooperation with Russia could accelerate its efforts to build a more diverse nuclear arsenal featuring both lower-yield short-range systems and land-based ICBMs. The former co-chair of the NCG also weighs in on the dangers of South Korea pursuing indigenous nuclear weapons, stressing that Washington is adapting alliance management to maintain credible deterrence even amid global crises and growing North Korea-China-Russia alignment. Dr. Vipin Narang is an American political scientist who served as the acting assistant secretary of defense for space policy until Aug. 2024, a portfolio that included policy on space and missile defense policy, nuclear deterrence and countering weapons of mass destruction. He also served as co-chair of the NCG. He has since returned to MIT, where he is the Frank Stranton Professor of Nuclear Security and the inaugural director of the Center for Nuclear Security policy.  About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insight from our very own journalists. NK News subscribers can listen to this and other exclusive episodes from their preferred podcast player by accessing the private podcast feed. For more detailed instructions, please see the step-by-step guide at nknews.org/private-feed.