Trust Before Pressure: Digital Regulation, Nuclear-Powered Submarines, and the Future of the U.S.–ROK Alliance

Jung Kim

University of North Korean Studies

Why Alliance Trust Matters Now

The U.S.–ROK alliance has long been sustained by a shared commitment to deterrence, democracy, and regional stability. For decades, its central purpose was clear: preventing war on the Korean Peninsula and deterring North Korean aggression.

Today, however, the alliance must operate in a far more complex strategic environment. Military threats, technological competition, digital regulation, supply-chain security, and economic statecraft have become increasingly interconnected. As a result, the future of the alliance will depend not only on military readiness but also on the ability of both governments to manage economic and regulatory disputes without undermining strategic trust.

It is in this context that two issues deserve particular attention: digital regulation, including disputes involving Coupang, and South Korea's pursuit of conventionally armed nuclear-powered submarines. At first glance, these appear to be unrelated issues. One falls within the realm of platform governance, competition policy, data protection, and trade.

The other concerns maritime deterrence, undersea capabilities, and nonproliferation. Yet both ultimately raise the same fundamental question: whether the United States is prepared to treat South Korea as a mature strategic partner whose domestic governance and defense modernization merit respect, meaningful consultation, and forward-looking support.

The alliance should therefore be guided by a clear principle. The United States should defend fairness, but it should not seek privilege. It should address proliferation concerns, but it should not deny South Korea the conventional capabilities necessary to respond effectively to a rapidly evolving security environment.

Digital Regulation and the Need for Fairness Without Privilege

South Korea's digital regulatory debates should not be dismissed as protectionism. Like other advanced democracies, South Korea faces genuine challenges in governing large digital platforms. These include consumer protection, data security, fair competition, labor standards, market concentration, and the vulnerability of small merchants. Such concerns represent legitimate public policy priorities. No democratic government can remain passive when digital platforms wield extensive influence over markets, data, logistics, and everyday life.

The controversy surrounding Coupang has made these questions especially sensitive. Coupang is deeply embedded in South Korea's consumer economy, yet it is also a U.S.-listed company with a global investor base. Its regulatory treatment in South Korea is therefore no longer viewed solely as a domestic matter. Recent reporting has linked the company's data breach, regulatory investigations, investor concerns, and broader U.S. scrutiny of South Korea's digital regulatory environment to wider tensions in U.S.–ROK economic relations.

The United States is justified in asking whether South Korea's digital regulations are transparent, proportionate, and non-discriminatory. If regulatory standards are vague, applied retroactively, enforced selectively, or shaped by political considerations, they risk undermining confidence not only in South Korea's regulatory system but also in the economic foundation of the alliance. Regulatory predictability is essential for investment, innovation, and bilateral trust.

At the same time, Washington should be careful not to portray every Korean regulatory action affecting a U.S.-linked firm as inherently anti-American. Such an approach would be strategically counterproductive. It would reinforce the perception that the United States supports rule-based governance only when its application does not disadvantage American companies. It would also weaken the credibility of legitimate U.S. concerns by making them appear less about fairness than about seeking exemption from rules that apply to others.

The better approach is not political pressure but disciplined consultation. The United States should advocate due process, legal clarity, and equal treatment for all firms, regardless of nationality. It should encourage South Korea to distinguish clearly among three distinct issues: data-security failures, abuses of market power, and ordinary commercial success. A company should not be penalized simply because it is large, foreign-linked, or politically prominent. Nor should it receive immunity because it has American investors or is listed on a U.S. stock exchange.

The alliance needs a dedicated digital trust mechanism. Such a mechanism could be established within the KORUS framework or through a parallel bilateral channel. Its purpose would not be to weaken South Korea's regulatory sovereignty but to prevent regulatory disputes from escalating into broader alliance tensions. It could provide for advance consultation on major platform legislation, regulatory impact assessments, cybersecurity cooperation, data-breach notification standards, and a neutral forum for discussing competition-law concerns.

The guiding principle should be straightforward: South Korea should regulate digital platforms through general, transparent, and consistently enforced rules, while the United States should defend procedural fairness without seeking special treatment for U.S.-linked firms.

Nuclear-Powered Submarines and Responsible Deterrence

The second issue concerns South Korea's pursuit of conventionally armed nuclear-powered submarines. This initiative should be understood not as a symbolic quest for prestige but as an important element of alliance modernization.

The security environment surrounding the Korean Peninsula is evolving rapidly. North Korea continues to advance its nuclear and missile capabilities, while undersea operations and maritime domain awareness are becoming increasingly important to deterrence. In this evolving strategic environment, South Korea's ability to monitor, track, and deter maritime threats will become an increasingly important component of the alliance's overall effectiveness.

A South Korean nuclear-powered submarine should therefore be viewed not as a step toward nuclear armament but as a conventionally armed strategic capability powered by nuclear propulsion. Its principal advantages lie in greater endurance, survivability, persistent undersea presence, and enhanced maritime deterrence.

Diesel-electric submarines remain highly capable, but they face inherent operational limitations in endurance and sustained submerged operations. Nuclear propulsion would enable South Korea to operate underwater for extended periods, enhancing its ability to monitor and track North Korean submarine activity while contributing to regional maritime stability.

Washington has begun to recognize this strategic logic. Recent reporting and official statements suggest that South Korea's pursuit of conventionally armed nuclear-powered submarines is increasingly being viewed as a potential alliance capability rather than merely a national procurement project. The Changbogo-N program has been presented as aiming to field a first nuclear-powered attack submarine by the mid-2030s. South Korean and U.S. officials have also highlighted its potential contribution to allied maritime capabilities and long-term alliance modernization.

The question now is whether the United States will move from cautious acceptance to constructive enablement. Approval in principle is not sufficient. If Washington recognizes South Korea's strategic requirements but delays implementation through bureaucratic caution, export-control uncertainty, fuel-cycle concerns, or industrial constraints, the consequences could be significant. Seoul may conclude that U.S. support is rhetorically strong but operationally uncertain.

A forward-looking U.S. policy should rest on four guiding principles.

First, Washington should publicly recognize a South Korean nuclear-powered submarine as a conventionally armed strategic capability that is compatible with both the alliance and the global nonproliferation regime. It should make clear that the issue concerns nuclear propulsion, not nuclear weapons.

Second, the two governments should establish a dedicated bilateral working group bringing together experts in defense, energy, law, shipbuilding, and nonproliferation. This effort should not be left to fragmented bureaucratic channels but should be managed through a coordinated institutional framework.

Third, the United States should support a transparent nuclear fuel-management framework grounded in rigorous safeguards, comprehensive material accounting, and close cooperation with international verification standards. The objective should be to build confidence before mistrust takes hold.

Fourth, Washington should integrate the submarine initiative into a broader framework of alliance industrial cooperation. South Korea's world-class shipbuilding industry, robust defense-industrial base, and growing investment in U.S. maritime infrastructure can make significant contributions to allied resilience. Cooperation on conventionally armed nuclear-powered submarines should therefore be understood not as a concession to Seoul but as an investment in strengthening allied maritime capability and long-term strategic integration.

Not a Transaction, but Alliance Modernization

The United States should avoid treating these two issues as transactional bargaining chips. It should not imply that support for South Korea's pursuit of conventionally armed nuclear-powered submarines depends on favorable regulatory treatment for Coupang. Nor should South Korea suggest that legitimate concerns about digital regulation can be set aside because it contributes more to alliance defense. Such linkage would reduce alliance management to transactional bargaining and erode the strategic trust on which the alliance depends.

Yet these two issues are connected at a deeper level. Both speak to the meaning of a mature alliance. In the economic domain, maturity means accepting that allies may regulate their markets differently while insisting that such regulation remains transparent, predictable, and fair. In the security domain, maturity means recognizing that a capable ally should assume greater responsibility while remaining firmly anchored in shared norms and nonproliferation commitments.

For the United States, the central task is to combine firmness with restraint. It should be firm in defending non-discrimination, due process, and open digital markets, while exercising restraint in avoiding coercive pressure that could make legitimate regulation appear incompatible with alliance solidarity. It should also be firm in upholding the global nonproliferation regime, while taking a forward-looking approach to helping South Korea develop advanced conventional capabilities that strengthen deterrence without crossing the nuclear threshold.

Trust as the Alliance’s Most Important Capability

The future of the U.S.–ROK alliance will not be determined by military exercises alone. It will also depend on whether the two countries can manage difficult disagreements without turning them into tests of political loyalty. Digital regulation and conventionally armed nuclear-powered submarines are not peripheral issues. They represent the emerging terrain of alliance politics, where economic governance, technological policy, and strategic deterrence increasingly intersect.

Washington should therefore send a clear and consistent message. In the digital domain, it should seek fairness, not privilege. In the security domain, it should support responsible deterrence, not nuclear armament. Across both domains, it should treat South Korea as a trusted strategic partner capable of assuming greater responsibility within a transparent, rules-based framework.

A credible alliance requires more than extended deterrence. It requires confidence that each side understands the other's domestic constraints, strategic concerns, and long-term responsibilities. For South Korea, this means regulating digital markets through transparent, predictable, and even-handed rules. For the United States, it means supporting South Korea's defense modernization with strategic vision and sustained commitment.

Trust is not built by avoiding disagreement. It is built by managing disagreement through shared principles, mutual respect, and institutionalized cooperation. That is the standard by which the next phase of the U.S.–ROK alliance should be judged.