Here is President Moon’s response to those calling for either the deployment or development of tactical nukes in South Korea:

South Korean President Moon Jae-in ruled out the possibility of redeploying U.S. nuclear weapons in the country Thursday, CNN reported.

In an interview with the U.S. cable news channel, he warned it could lead to a nuclear arms race in Northeast Asia.

“I do not agree that South Korea needs to develop our own nuclear weapons or relocate tactical nuclear weapons in the face of North Korea’s nuclear threat,” he was quoted by CNN as saying.

The interview was made ahead of his visit to New York next week to attend the U.N. General Assembly.

Moon said South Korea needs to develop military capabilities in the face of the North’s growing nuclear threat, while expressing objection to some conservatives’ call for Seoul’s own nuclear armament.

“To respond to North Korea by having our own nuclear weapons will not maintain peace on the Korean Peninsula and could lead to a nuclear arms race in northeast Asia,” Moon said.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but this is what the academic circles are saying about introducing nuclear weapons to South Korea:

South Korea obtaining nuclear armament will not stop North Korea’s military provocations or deter its nuclear threats, experts on the North said Thursday.

They expect deploying tactical nuclear weapons will only give Pyongyang more reason to speed up its nuclear development.

“The call to reintroduce nuclear weapons reflects an understandable frustration,” Stephan Haggard, director of the Korea-Pacific Program at the University of California San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy, told The Korea Times.

“But it does very little to strengthen the deterrent. Moreover, reintroducing nuclear weapons would only provide further justification for North Korea to continue with its own nuclear program. This is simply a bad idea.”

Joseph DeTrani, a former U.S. special envoy to the six-party talks, also said he is not in favor of deploying tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea, citing the U.S.’s extended nuclear deterrence commitment to the South.

“The U.S. is committed to the defense of South Korea, and our nuclear umbrella for South Korea and Japan is a very important and credible element of our deterrence strategy,” he said.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

What? Hite Fitz didn't take over the market? Beer drinkers choose foreign ales over local brews https://t.co/5a6YLkGdPT

— KingSejong (@KingSejong) September 11, 2017

Members of girl group Elris form a heart during a showcase in Seoul on Sept. 13, 2017, on the release of their second mini album. (Yonhap)

South Korea is interested in fielding the Aegis SM-3 capability, but it seems to me it would make more sense for them to field a land-based Aegis Ashore that could be installed to provide persistent missile defense in the middle of the country:

Seoul needs to deploy U.S. ship-based missile interceptors known as RIM-161 Standard Missile 3s, or SM-3s, to complete its low-altitude air and missile defense system against North Korea, according to an internal report by South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense that was exclusively acquired by the JoongAng Ilbo Monday.

Drafted in August and handed over by Bareun Party Rep. Kim Young-woo, a member on the parliamentary National Defense Committee, the report acknowledges that South Korea’s current low-altitude defense system, also known as the Korea Air and Missile Defense, or KAMD, is unable to intercept some North Korean missiles if they were to fly across the border.

A local government source who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the military wrote the report in order to start policy discussions on how Seoul could deploy the SM-3s, which are said to be able to target any North Korean missile fired from a normal angle, filling in a gap left by the country’s current defense systems, mainly comprising the Patriot and Cheongung interceptors that can target an incoming missile up to 20 kilometers (12 miles) high, and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) missile shield, which covers 40 to 150 kilometers in altitude.

An SM-3 has a range of up to 400 kilometers and can travel as far as 700 kilometers away.

The ministry stressed that the defense system would especially come in handy if North Korea carries out an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack, as it recently threatened.

Under that scenario, the ministry said it was likely North Korea would blast its warhead-triggered EMP about 60 to 80 kilometers above ground, which can effectively be targeted by an SM-3.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Here is an update on the Camp Humphreys expansion project:

Originally a small fighter base during the Korean War, Camp Humphreys has transformed into the peninsula’s largest military installation.

Aerial snapshots taken Wednesday show a transformation 8th Army commander Lt. Gen. Thomas Vandal calls 80 percent done.

Barracks and training ranges can be seen sprawling along the banks of Anseong River to the north as family housing and schools cut into vast rice paddies to the south.

Four-lane boulevards bisect block after block of new buildings. The base looks more like the massive U.S. installations of Fort Bliss and Fort Hood in Texas than it does the old Korean War-era camps filled with Quonset huts north of the Han River.

However, the images also show sore spots for the $10.7 billion project aimed to fulfill a 2004 agreement between Seoul and Washington to move the bulk of U.S. forces 40 miles south of Seoul.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link.

Here is the latest threat from North Korea in response to the recent United Nations sanctions.  This type bombastic threat leads me to believe they may do yet another provocation.  Since they are specifically mentioning Japan in this statement could they be setting conditions for another missile firing over the country?  I guess we will see:

A North Korean state agency threatened on Thursday to use nuclear weapons to “sink” Japan and reduce the United States to “ashes and darkness” for supporting a U.N. Security Council resolution and sanctions over its latest nuclear test.

The Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, which handles the North’s external ties and propaganda, also called for the breakup of the Security Council, which it called “a tool of evil” made up of “money-bribed” countries that move at the order of the United States.

“The four islands of the archipelago should be sunken into the sea by the nuclear bomb of Juche. Japan is no longer needed to exist near us,” the committee said in a statement carried by the North’s official KCNA news agency.

Juche is the North’s ruling ideology that mixes Marxism and an extreme form of go-it-alone nationalism preached by state founder Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of the current leader, Kim Jong Un.  [Reuters]

You can read more at the link.

It looks like the Trump administration was able to get one less client of North Korea’s arms sales.  The Egyptians in the past have bought ballistic missiles from the North Koreans:

Egypt’s defense minister, on a visit to Seoul, announced that his country has cut military ties with North Korea, according to a report by South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.

There was no immediate confirmation from the Egyptian government of the agency’s report, but Cairo has come under mounting pressure in recent weeks to sever ties with North Korea as the United States seek to curb Pyongyang’s efforts to develop long-range nuclear weapons.

Last month Washington cut or delayed nearly $300 million in aid to Egypt over its human rights record and its ties with Pyongyang.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

Moon Jae-in, Putin & Kaesong 2.0: Why the state of the U.S.-Korea alliance is not strong https://t.co/70NRvfKRIZ

— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) September 11, 2017

A Taurus missile fired from an F-15K fighter jet hits the target during the first live-fire drill of the missile in Taean, South Chungcheong Province, on Sept. 13, 2017, in this photo from the Air Force. South Korea is deploying some 170 of these long-range air-to-surface missiles, brought in from Germany, for precision bombing of facilities in North Korea. The missile fired during the drill flew approximately 400 kilometers to reach the target, according to the Air Force. (Yonhap)

I doubt Kim Jong-un is very concerned about this when he knows there is almost zero chance the ROK President is willing to execute such a preemptive strike.  This report seems more for domestic consumption to show the ROK public the government is “doing something”:

South Korea’s defense minister is publicly boasting that it will create a new “decapitation unit” called the Spartan 3000 with the express intent of taking out North Korean leadership, The New York Times reports.

The brigade-sized unit of between 2,000 and 4,000 soldiers will be established by year’s end, The Times reported the defense minister, Song Young-moo, as saying, adding that the military was already “retooling” helicopters and transporting planes to be able to penetrate North Korean airspace at night.

It’s out of the ordinary for a senior government leader to publicly say they are working on a plan to assassinate a foreign head of state. But there’s an interesting reason behind it: The South is trying to freak out its northern neighbor and get it to the negotiating table instead of further developing nuclear weapons.

“The best deterrence we can have, next to having our own nukes, is to make Kim Jong Un fear for his life,” retired South Korean Lt. Gen. Shin Won-sik told The Times.  [Business Insider]

You can read more at the link.