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Wonhyuk Lim, Fellow at the Korea Development Institute (www.kdi.re.kr) and Korea National Strategy Institute (www.knsi.org), writes, “Just as it is not appeasement to talk to North Korea or any other potential adversary, it is not appeasement to hire North Korean workers and pay their wages. Instead of blaming economic engagement that promotes internal changes in North Korea, it would be far better to contain and reduce potential military threats through arms control negotiations and re-establish the policy synergy the United States and South Korea enjoyed in dealing with North Korea.”

The Singapore Institute for International Affairs (SIIA), a non-profit, non-governmental organization dedicated to the research, analysis and discussion of regional and international issues, writes, “tackling Southeast Asian health and terrorism problems seems to be the priority. For now, human right issues are still being brewed in the Congressional Democratic pot.”

Gavan McCormack, a coordinator at Japan Focus and author of the forthcoming book Client State: Japan in the American Embrace, writes, “In Okinawa more than anywhere else in Japan, the precarious and one-sided nature of the supposedly ‘mature’ and ‘second-to-none’ US-Japan relationship is palpable. In his eagerness to please his Washington friend, Prime Minister Koizumi promised Bush something that he almost certainly could not deliver: a solution to the long-running dispute over relocating the Futenma base; his successor, Abe, was left with the obligation to deliver on that promise.”

Siegfried S. Hecker, researcher at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, writes, “My general impression is that the Oct. 9, 2006 nuclear test, which followed DPRK’s Feb.10, 2005 announcement of having manufactured nuclear weapons, will make it much more difficult to convince the DPRK to give up its nuclear weapons… The prevalent view we found in China, with which I concur, is that the United States must demonstrably address DPRK’s security before there is any hope of denuclearization.”

Tatsujiro Suzuki, Senior Research Scientist, Socio-economic Research Center, Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI), and Visiting Professor, Graduate School of Public Policy, the University of Tokyo, writes, “The primary driving force behind Japan’s reprocessing program is the management of spent nuclear fuel. The back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle, i.e. management of spent fuel and waste, would pose significant financial, political, and social risks to Japan’s nuclear power program. Japan should explore alternative socio-political solutions, including multinational approaches, to its complex spent fuel management issues.”

In this article Mark J. Valencia, a maritime policy analyst based in Hawaii and the author of “The Proliferation Security Initiative: Making Waves in Asia”, writes, “such interdictions, without the permission of the flag state, on or over the high seas, could be considered an act of war. Some thought North Korea was bluffing when it said it would launch ballistic missiles. They thought it was bluffing when it said it had a nuclear weapon. They also thought it was bluffing when it said it would test a nuclear weapon. Now it has threatened war if its vessels or aircraft are interdicted. Given this history of miscalculation on both sides, the United States and its friends in the region need to carefully consider if hey want to contribute to the cause of a possible Second Korean War.”

Sheila Miyoshi Jager, Associate Professor of East Asian Studies at Oberlin College and the author (with Rana Mitter) of “Ruptured Histories: War, Memory and the Post- Cold War in Asia”, writes, “Washington must come to terms with the emergence of pan-Korean nationalism in South Korea in which ending the Korean War is the main goal. In practical terms, this will require that the United States engage North Korea in direct bi-lateral talks aimed at finally settling the hostile relations between the two countries with the ultimate goal of concluding a peace treaty and establishing diplomatic relations.”

Alexandre Y. Mansourov, Associate Professor at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu, writes, “The Taoist “Way” out of the current nuclear standoff between North Korea and the United States is based on four simple Tao wisdoms – “small steps together,” “use help from others when in trouble,” “know when enough is enough,” and, finally, “doing less is doing more.” It may look paradoxical and even heretic, but the Taoist conclusion is that the less we do in our quest to resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis at present, the more we will achieve in the end and the safer we will all be in the meantime.”

John J. Tkacik, Jr., Senior Research Fellow in China Policy in the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation, writes, “The new and mature tenor of China’s diplomatic rhetoric may signal a real change in Beijing’s policies on North Korea – or it may reflect a Chinese tactic of ‘soft on the outside’ but ‘hard on the inside’ when engaging Washington. How receptive Beijing is to the U.S. call for enforceable sanctions on North Korea will reveal how serious China really is about being a responsible stakeholder.”

Jungmin Kang, Science Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University, and Peter Hayes, Nautilus Institute Executive Director, write, “Having tested and failed, the DPRK can no longer rely on opacity as the basis for having a credible nuclear force, at least sufficiently credible to threaten its adversaries with a nuclear explosion. The DPRK might believe that a half kilotonne “mininuke” still provides it with a measure of nuclear deterrence and compellence; but it could not rely on other nuclear weapons states to perceive it to have anything more than an unusable, unreliable and relatively small nuclear explosive device.”