Author Archives: Saegan

Rapid Fire April 5, 2013: Nuclear Options, from Britain to North Korea, Defense Industry Daily, 5 April 2013

Peter Hayes and Roger Cavazos at the Nautilus Institute think North Korea can and should be engaged as a rational actor, if only to clarify their intentions. It might turn out to be wishful thinking, but they have a point: just because all parties don’t want to escalate tensions into a war, doesn’t mean events won’t spiral out of control, especially as backing off is hardly a viable option from the American perspective.

Rattling the American Cage: North Korean Nuclear Threats and Escalation Potential

Peter Hayes and Roger Cavazos write: “We do not believe that North Korea intends to attack South Korea, pre-emptively or otherwise, in the current cycle of threat projection. However, miscalculation, accidents, or “wild cards” can all activate an unstoppable chain of events that lead to uncontrollable escalation…Talk is cheap, valuable, and entails no concessions. In the current charged environment, the only way to obtain badly needed information about North Korean intentions and therefore, the real level of threat, is to talk to them.”

Peter Hayes is director of Nautilus Institute and Professor of International Relations at RMIT University in Melbourne. Roger Cavazos is an Associate of Nautilus Institute and retired US military intelligence officer.

U.S-Japan Core Issues

Sheila Smith writes: “The proposal for A New Approach to Security in Northeast Asia: Breaking the Gridlock offers a fresh perspective on the diplomatic framework for negotiating peace and stability for Northeast Asia. This memo responds to this initiative from the perspective of Japanese security and the shared strategic goals of the U.S.-Japan alliance.”

Sheila A. Smith is a Senior Fellow for Japan Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

This report was originally presented at the New Approach to Security in Northeast Asia: Breaking the Gridlock workshop held on October 9th and 10th, 2012 in Washington, DC.

North Korean War Threats Spotlight Its Untested Dictator, Terry Atlas, Bloomberg, 1 April 2013

The situation is “more dangerous than it has been at any time since 1976,” when the U.S. and North Korea nearly came to blows under Kim’s grandfather, said Peter Hayes, executive director of the Nautilus Institute, a research group in Berkeley, California.The situation is “more dangerous than it has been at any time since 1976,” when the U.S. and North Korea nearly came to blows under Kim’s grandfather, said Peter Hayes, executive director of the Nautilus Institute, a research group in Berkeley, California.

North Korea tensions near boiling point, Japan Times, 31 March 2013

Soaring tensions on the Korean Peninsula have seen dire North Korean threats met with an unusually assertive U.S. response that analysts warn could take a familiar game into dangerous territory…

Peter Hayes, who heads the Nautilus Institute, an Asia-focused think tank, points out that the B-52 deployment carried a particular — and potentially dangerous — resonance.

After a bloody border incident in 1976 left two American soldiers dead, the United States spent weeks sending flights of B-52 bombers up the Korean Peninsula, veering off just before they entered the North’s airspace. Then-U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger commented that he had “never seen the North Koreans so scared.”

Hayes warned that replaying the B-52 threat could prove to be “strategically stupid” by reviving the North’s historic and deep-rooted fear of a U.S. nuclear strike. “The B-52 deployment also declares loudly and clearly that they have forced the U.S. to play the game of nuclear war with North Korea,” Hayes said. “It tells them it has reached the hallowed status of a nuclear-armed state that matters enough to force a simulated nuclear-military response.”

Replacing the Armistice With A Peace Treaty in Korea

Leon V. Sigal: “Whether a peace treaty precedes or follows denuclearization, it is inconceivable that Pyongyang would curb its nuclear and missile programs, never mind give up its nuclear arms and missiles, without a peace process. As long as the United States and South Korea remain its foes, it will feel threatened and want a stronger “deterrent” to counter that threat.”

Leon V. Sigal is director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council in New York.

This report was originally presented at the New Approach to Security in Northeast Asia: Breaking the Gridlock workshop held on October 9th and 10th, 2012 in Washington, DC.

North Korea’s threats: Five things to know, Matt Smith, CNN, 24 March 2013

“Peter Hayes, director of the San Francisco-based Nautilus Institute, says there’s also a debate going on inside the North Korean leadership about the country’s future as a nuclear state. One side wants “to be a nuclear-armed state that is able to behave like the recognized, legal nuclear weapons states and play their game and turn the tables on them,” Hayes said. “That is, in my view, what is going on in the test and the rocket firing,” he said. “The other policy current is associated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the international faction of the Korean Worker’s Party, which is to negotiate our way out of this mess.”

Taiwan to phase out nuclear program by 2055, Liam Cochrane, ABC Radio Australia, 22 March 2013

The world paused for thought recently on the second year anniversary of the meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan. And despite a climate of uncertainty that followed, it appears that plans for a nuclear powered future in Asia, remain mostly on track. Taiwan, however, appears to be going against the grain, announcing plans earlier this month to phase out its nuclear program by 2055 at the latest.

So how significant it is that Taiwan has set a date to be nuclear-free?

Speaker: David Von Hippel, Senior Associate at the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability