As options for dealing with North Korea (not that there are any good options on the table) are discussed, there is often a tendency to view things from only our perspective as Americans. Rarely do you find serious looks at

Anyway, there is by no means a universal opinion on the matter here in South Korea. With things like college students calling for the ouster of a professor who recently praised Kim Ilsung for trying to reunify the country, it’s clear the pendulum is beginning to swing back the other way. A conservative win in two years is likely (but not guaranteed).

Also, at a time when we’re trying to get North Korea to dismantle their nuclear weapons and to get China to dismantle their non-nuclear (but probably armed with chemical weapons) missiles pointed at Taiwan, bringing in more force would just continue an arms race mentality on both sides.

this paragraph is a bit counterintuitive. Of course I highly doubt that North Korea would ever get to a point where they could successfully launch a nuclear attack against S.Korea or Japan, but do you seriously believe that dropping a hundred nuclear bombs on an area so close in proximity to our allies would do them any good? the environmental fallout would be devestating, and project itself hundreds of years into the future.

Would South Koreans ever accept such an action? half of their history and race being wiped off the Earth? they do still desire reunification, their brothers, to the North, although highly caustic, are not merely faceless terrorists.

regarding weapons, mitsubishi designs the targeting systems for Americas patriot missiles, so they wont be looking for handouts anytime soon.

The answer to your question is a big NO. Taiwan was in the process of developing nuclear weapons in the 70s, and South Korea was in the 80s. They only stopped under force of US pressure and a condition that there would be no foreign nuclear weapons in their respective territory. If we bring nukes into either Taiwan or South Korea, they would probably resume their dead programs and have their own nuclear weapons within a few months.

As for Japan, they have a very strict anti-nukes policy (which on the 60th anniversary of their own bombing is not likely to be changed in the immediate future), and even if they were to relax that policy, they don’t need OUR nukes. They have a huge amount of weapons grade nuclear material stockpiled from their supply of nuclear power plants, and the technology to manufacture dozens if not hundreds of nuclear weapons practically overnight, if they desired to. Not to mention the fact that, as one of the few countries with a space program, they could actually construct effective ICBMs that could reach anywhere on Earth.