South Koreans wonder if the US will still protect them from North Korea

There is growing support within South Korea for the country to secure its own nuclear weapons, write Michelle Ye Hee Lee and Min Joo Kim

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attends a meeting of Pyongyang’s Central Military Commission (AP)

The mood around Unification Village, just south of the inter-Korean border, has grown tense the past two years as North Korea ramps up its ballistic missile tests. Most recently, North Korean drones even infiltrated the border.

“It is time we went nuclear,” says Lee Wan-bae, who has lived for 50 years in the village, just three miles south of the Military Demarcation Line that marks the official border between the two Koreas.

For decades, Lee has had a front-row view of the fluctuating border tensions amid failed efforts to disarm North Korea. “It increasingly looks like matching the nuclear threat from North Korea is the solution that will bring long-desired stability to our village life,” Lee says.