The Coming Crisis: The U.S. House Armed Services Committee on Thursday adopted an amendment that urges the Obama administration to redeploy tactical nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula. The amendment to the defense authorization bill, passed by a vote of 32-26, supports "steps to…redeploy tactical nuclear weapons to the Western Pacific region." A tactical nuclear weapon is a small warhead with a 10-20 kiloton explosive yield that can be mounted on artillery shells or short-range missiles to be used on a battlefield, as opposed to strategic nuclear weapons that are designed to annihilate huge populations. The U.S. Forces Korea used to have around 200 tactical nuclear weapons, but all of them were withdrawn following former President Roh Tae-woo's decision in 1991 to denuclearize Korea. The move was designed to persuade North Korea, which was under suspicion at that time of developing nuclear arms, to scrap those attempts. But over the ensuing 20 years, North Korea has developed nuclear weapons and is gearing up to conduct its third nuclear test. There have been calls within South Korea over the years to either develop a home-grown nuclear bomb or at least have U.S. troops redeploy tactical nuclear weapons. But Washington wanted to keep the Korean Peninsula free of nuclear weapons. Source: The Coming Crisis
