The defensive alliance between the U.S. and South Korea is approaching its 70th birthday, and as ever, all is not well on the Korean Peninsula. 

The Biden administration’s announcement after last week’s U.S.-ROK summit that it will rotationally deploy nuclear-armed submarines, bombers and possibly other systems through South Korea is the latest example of the same structural problems that have persisted for several decades. It is far from clear that these strategic assets will have any effect and may actually make matters worse. 

Many of the current challenges bedeviling the