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Policy Forum 12-01: The DPRK Interregnum: Window of Opportunity for the International Community

Victor Hsu, a Visiting Professor at the Korea Development Institute School of Public Policy and Management, argues that the post funeral interregnum in the DPRK should be seen as a window of opportunity for moving North Korea’s relationships in a constructive direction. To do this, Hsu suggests that the international community network and create a coordinated engagement plan that avoids duplication, maximizes the increasingly scarce resources among traditional donors and gathers lessons learned for future engagement. Donors could facilitate this work by supporting civil society knowledge-sharing efforts with the DPRK, which is more sustainable and less susceptible to the vicissitudes of inter-state relations.

Military Aspects of a Study of the Implications of a Communist Chinese Nuclear Capability

In this 1963 report B.F. Jaeger and M. Weiner analyze Chinese nuclear capabilities under three different cross-strait conflict scenarios. The three scenarios provide an assessment of the possible military consequences of China’s possession of a modest nuclear arsenal, and give some indication of the magnitude of the risks China might face in a military confrontation with the United States over Taiwan.

This report was released to the Nautilus Institute under the US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). See the Institute’s FOIA Global Disclosure Project page to read more chronologies, histories and reports released to Nautilus.

A Proposal for a Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone in Northeast Asia

Morton H. Halperin served four US presidents and is currently a Senior Adviser at the Open Society Foundation. Halperin notes that, as the Six-Party talks aimed at eliminating North Korea’s nuclear program remain stalled, a fresh approach incorporating the concept of a nuclear weapons-free zone in Northeast Asia should be considered as a way of ensuring peace and security in the region.

A version of this essay was originally presented at the East Asia Nuclear Security Workshop in Tokyo, Japan, on Nov. 11, 2011 convened by Nautilus Institute, Mansfield Foundation,  and the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network. The workshop addressed the robustness of proposals to establish a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Northeast Asia region.

Policy Forum 11-44: The Party as the Kingmaker: The Death of Kim Jong Il and its Consequences for North Korea

Ruediger Frank, a Professor of East Asian Economy and Society, University of Vienna and Adjunct Professor, Korea University and the University of North Korean Studies, writes, “The big question now is will the North Korean elite and population accept the Central Committee’s decision, and will they welcome Kim Jong Un as the new leader? History teaches us that things do not always proceed according to plan or conventional wisdom. We cannot exclude the possibility of ambitious individuals testing the opportunities…There are powerful individuals like Choe Yong Rim, Prime Minister; Kim Young Nam, Head of State; Jang Song Thaek, Kim Jong Il’s brother-in-law and alternate member of the Politburo, and his wife and Kim Jong Il’s sister Kim Kyong Hui who is a regular Politburo member and a General…Will they back up Kim Jong Un, or try to manipulate and sideline him?”

Policy Forum 11-43: Kim Jong Il’s Death Suggests Continuity Plus Opportunity to Engage

Peter Hayes, Scott Bruce, and David von Hippel of the Nautilus Institute, write, “Ironically, Kim Jong Il’s death may make Korea the land of the morning calm for at least a year, during which political transitions will also occur in China, South Korea, Japan, Russia, and the United States… Unless Kim Jong Un throws the nuclear strategy out the window and starts again, the outlines of the engagement agenda are already clear—send the North Koreans energy and food aid to meet both short-term humanitarian and medium/long-term development needs, help them build a safe small light water reactor, and bring them into an international enrichment consortium that would lead them to reveal the sum total of their enrichment program.”