A study conducted by the South Korean statistics agency Gallup Korea showed that more than 60% of South Korean citizens supported their country acquiring nuclear weapons.
According to the results, 65% of survey participants answered "yes" to the question "Should our country have nuclear weapons?", while 30% opposed the idea, and 5% expressed a hesitant or indecisive position.
The data also showed that support for possessing nuclear weapons was not limited to one political group over another, but enjoyed a wide majority among supporters of the two most influential parties in the country, as 60% of supporters of the ruling United Democratic Party supported it, and the percentage rose to 78% among supporters of the main opposition party, Citizens Power.
In the context of security threats, 39% of respondents considered the outbreak of actual hostilities on the Korean Peninsula to be a real possibility, while 58% of the sample ruled out the occurrence of such a scenario.
Seoul authorities have repeatedly affirmed that they have no intention of possessing their own nuclear arsenal, for fear of being subjected to international sanctions, and current President Lee Jae-myung continues to adhere to his position supporting the denuclearization of the peninsula.
However, subsequent developments revealed a different path, as South Korea revealed at the end of May 2026 an ambitious program called "Jang Bogu-in", which includes building nuclear submarines powered by low-enriched uranium fuel, with the first of these submarines to be launched by the middle of the 2030s, with actual operation beginning in the second half of the same decade. At least three submarines are planned to be built, each with a displacement of about 8,000 tons.
