Nuclear Submarines and the Limits of the 123 Agreement | Eye on Korea Ep. 41

President Donald Trump said South Korea’s nuclear-powered submarines would be built at the Hanwha Philly Shipyard. Joyce Connery explains why they may not be built there, and what the actual construction path means for a U.S.-South Korea nuclear agenda that has grown beyond the agreement governing it.

Connery is Principal Owner of Connery Strategies and a Distinguished Fellow at the Atlantic Council. She served as Chair of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board and was the first Director of Nuclear Energy Policy at the National Security Council (NSC), one of three NSC tours in a federal career of more than two decades that also included roles at the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration.

Connery discusses why a commercial shipyard is not a facility qualified for naval nuclear work, implications of the AUKUS precedent for South Korea, and why naval propulsion falls outside the 2015 Agreement for Cooperation Concerning Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy, also known as the 123 Agreement.

They also cover the June 2026 working-group consultations in Seoul, Korea’s near-term fuel assurance arrangements, the restructuring of South Korean reactor export governance, what allied deterrence consultation can deliver as North Korea’s arsenal expands, and more.

The conversation follows Connery's July 2026 ROK-U.S. Policy Brief, “Operationalizing U.S.-ROK Nuclear Cooperation,” published jointly by the Seoul National University Institute for Peace and Unification Studies and the George Washington University Institute for Korean Studies. Click here to read the full brief:

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