ABSTRACT
In an effort to reduce its heavy dependence on imported oil, South Korea has embarked on a large civil nuclear energy programme. Fear of war was deep and pervasive among South Korean intellectuals. The relatively few South Korean scholars who explicitly favoured the acquisition of nuclear weapons in the period 1977–79 assumed that North Korea was militarily superior to the South. South Korea would come under intense international pressure to abandon a nuclear weapon programme once it was discovered, which would probably be in its early stages. South Korean governments have from time to time publicly declared a policy of refraining from the development of nuclear weapons, apparently appreciating the risks to which the acquisition of such weapons would expose the country. South Korea justified the purchase as a means of training engineers in reprocessing technology.
