South Korea

38 North | English | AcademicThink | Jan. 23, 2026 | North Korea

The latest US National Security Strategy (NSS) marks a significant shift in Washington’s approach to the Korean Peninsula by excluding North Korean denuclearization as a central concern and redirecting deterrence responsibilities primarily onto allies, especially South Korea. This shift reflects a reprioritization in US strategy that reduces direct engagement and increases South Korea’s burden in managing North Korea, resulting in a more volatile and unpredictable security environment.

North Korea views this strategic retrenchment as an opportunity to strengthen its position by adopting a more confrontational stance toward South Korea, potentially codifying a hostile inter-Korean doctrine at its upcoming Ninth Party Congress. Its military provocations serve a dual purpose: challenging South Korea’s control over contested maritime and air defense zones in a calculated manner to avoid large-scale escalation, and provoking political divisions within South Korea related to responses and the credibility of US extended deterrence.

South Korea is responding to these provocations by significantly increasing its defense budget and investing in advanced military capabilities, signaling a shift toward greater self-reliance and reduced dependence on the US nuclear umbrella. Discussions on indigenous nuclear options and strategic assets have entered mainstream political debate, reflecting growing doubts about the reliability of US deterrence.

The absence of North Korea from the US NSS increases the risk of an accelerated arms race on the Peninsula, compounded by US global strategic actions that raise perceptions of unpredictability and willingness to use force. This dynamic incentivizes both Pyongyang and Seoul to engage in competitive military buildup and riskier postures, especially around sensitive zones like the Northern Limit Line and Korea Air Defense Identification Zone, with a heightened chance of destabilizing escalation.

Underlying this situation are flawed assumptions within US policy that ambiguity and burden-shifting will maintain stability. Without clear communication, senior-level coordination, and explicit crisis management policies—including well-defined red lines—burden-shifting encourages risk-taking by all parties. The evolving arms competition and alliance asymmetries on the Peninsula increase the likelihood of costly miscalculations and military adventurism unless strategic signaling and allied coordination improve significantly.

Joongang Ilbo | English | News | Jan. 23, 2026 | Communal and Religious Strife

President Lee Jae Myung condemned the collusion between politics and religion as a "path to national ruin" during his New Year's press conference on January 21, 2026. He highlighted the unacceptable use of religious groups like the Unification Church and Shincheonji Church of Jesus in political election meddling and called for stern punishment of such acts. Lee responded to recent accusations that these organizations influenced political processes, including bribery and mass mobilization to sway primaries and elections. Religious leaders meeting with Lee also urged the disbanding of illegitimate religious organizations.

Lee outlined a national growth strategy centered on five key pillars: regionally-led growth, inclusive growth, safety-based growth, culture-driven growth, and peace-supported growth. He emphasized the need for a "great leap forward through a great transformation" as existing strategies fail to ensure future development. Lee pledged continued efforts to combat irregularities, unfair practices, and to pursue prosecutorial reform geared toward fairness and efficiency, with potential allowances for limited supplementary investigations.

On economic issues, Lee acknowledged concerns over the Korean won's recent weakening but said the government would take measures to stabilize the exchange rate. He expressed confidence that the won’s value would recover within one or two months and positioned this as a relatively stable situation compared to other currencies. On industrial and policy matters, Lee addressed the ongoing political debate about the Yongin semiconductor cluster project, insisting that companies choose locations based on profitability rather than political pressure, and reaffirmed government commitment to the existing plan.

Regarding housing prices and taxation, Lee noted taxes should primarily secure national finances and not be used primarily as regulatory tools, reserving such measures as a last resort. On nuclear power plant construction, he advocated for decisions based on necessity, safety, and public opinion, warning against overturning policies simply due to administrative changes, in the interest of policy stability and sustainability.

The 173-minute press conference, Lee's longest to date, included 25 reporter questions and a mix of serious policy discussion and lighter moments, such as his humorous response to questions about his close relationships with aides.

SKT 'A.X K1', 옴니모달로 진화…“소버린 AI 마중물 될 것”

ET News | Local Language | News | Jan. 23, 2026 | UndeterminedTech Development/Adoption

SK Telecom's ultra-large AI model, A.Dot X (A.X) K1, is advancing into an omnimodal model as part of the second phase of its independent AI foundation model project. This upgrade will enable the model to understand and process speech in real time alongside text and images, aiming to establish leadership in sovereign AI. The A.X K1, already a model with approximately 500 billion parameters, will sequentially incorporate multimodal functions, including voice and image recognition.

Professor Kim Geon-hee of Seoul National University highlighted the transition from multimodal models, which integrate text, photos, and videos, to omnimodal models that also include speech understanding. He emphasized the technical difficulty of implementing real-time voice conversations due to their bidirectional and simultaneous nature, requiring the model to handle interruptions, brief feedback, and emotional nuances. Past approaches using separate speech-to-text and text-to-speech systems faced delays and lost key information, such as breathing and emotional signals.

To address these challenges, recent developments focus on integrated language models capable of processing voice information directly. The core strategy involves fine-tuning a powerful pretrained language model using diverse data, including voice, to achieve comprehensive omnimodal capabilities. SK Telecom aims to deploy these advancements across various services like A.Dot, T map, and B tv, and expects the technology to play a central role in enhancing AI applications in gaming and mobility through partners Krafton and 42dot.

Professor Kim stressed that the success of sovereign AI depends heavily on effective use of national core data sovereignty, which includes largely unstructured data in multiple formats. An omnimodal model allows for direct training and operation of such data without relying on external platforms, thus reinforcing both digital sovereignty and sovereignty over physical infrastructure.