Special Reports

Improving Regional Security and Denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula: U.S. Policy Interests and Options Joel Wit, an Adjunct Senior Visiting Scholar at Columbia University’s Weatherhead Institute for East Asia and a Visiting Fellow at the U.S.-Korea Institute at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, has written a report outlining actions to be taken […]

An Independent Task Force, convened by the Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations and the University of California’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, write, “Economic engagement should be a central part of U.S. strategy in dealing with Pyongyang, and is complementary to the current focus on solving the nuclear issue. Sanctions have a role in defending the U.S. against risks of proliferation, but they have not and cannot provide a long-run solution to the North Korean problem. Combining targeted sanctions with robust engagement, as the Obama administration is attempting to do with Iran and Burma, offers the best hope of changing the motivations and the actions of states that presently take a hostile stance toward the U.S. and the international community.”

Read a discussion of this article here.

Wonhyuk Lim, Director of the Overseas Development Office of the Korea Development Institute, writes, “there appear to be basically two options for the United States, depending on what kind of relationship with China it envisions. One is to place South Korea within a hub and-spoke alliance against China, using the North Korean nuclear crisis as a catalyst. However, this policy is likely to find little support in South Korea and risks a nationalist backlash if the United States is increasingly viewed as an impediment to Korean unification and regional security…The other alternative is to deal with South Korea on more equal terms and engage it as a partner in building a new order in the region… This approach would not only strengthen the U.S. position in the Korean peninsula but also enhance its policy options in dealing with China and Japan.”

Peter Hayes, Executive Director of the Nautilus Institute, writes, “There is no shortage of options, and an infinity of needs. And ways exist to work around the barriers that divide North Korea from the rest of the world. There’s no time to wait, or these enduring legacies will become unbearable, and feed into a vortex of chaos and collapse in North Korea, with unimaginable consequences for humans and nature alike.”

The International Crisis Group, an independent, non-profit, multinational organization, working through field-based analysis and high-level advocacy to prevent and resolve deadly conflict, writes, “While still preserving the Six-Party framework… the U.S. needs to talk to Pyongyang directly at the highest levels. At best this could result in a deal; at worst it might shed some light on North Korea’s motivations and aspirations. High-level engagement may seem to be rewarding bad behaviour, but it is also the only way any agreement is likely to be reached.”

ICG has also published supporting reports on North Koreans nuclear and missile program (available at: 09051BICG.pdf) and the DPRK’s chemical and biological weapons program (available at: 09051CICG.pdf).

This is the full text of United Nations Resolution 1874 which responded to the DPRK nuclear test of May 25, 2009. The text includes the full resolution as well as explanations of the statement by representatives from the United States, the People’s Republic of China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, and other countries.

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization presented this early analysis of the May 25th, 2009 DPRK Nuclear Test. The report notes the magnitude and location of the seismic event as identified by 23 different seismic stations.

Karin Lee and Julia Choi of the National Committee on North Korea (http://www.ncnk.org/ncnk) write, “all sides may find it a difficult and slow process to rebuild the momentum lost in the last half a year. It will take a great deal of effort for the promise of sanction reversals implied by US actions in October 2008 to overcome the new momentum of April 2009.”

David Wright, co-director of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ (UCS) Global Security Program, notes that “between April 4 and April 8 North Korea will attempt to place a satellite into space using the Unha-2 launcher. While some have characterized this as a ballistic missile test, a successful satellite launch wouldn’t necessarily demonstrate the ability to launch a nuclear warhead to intercontinental range. Modifications to increase the capability of the launcher pose both material and manufacturing challenges that North Korea may have yet to overcome.”