Selig S. Harrison, Director of the Asia Program at the Center for International Policy, writes, “Progress towards denuclearization would require U.S. steps to assure North Korea that it will not be the victim of a nuclear attack… Realistically, if the U.S. is unwilling to give up the option of using nuclear weapons against North Korea, it will be necessary to live with a nuclear-armed North Korea while maintaining adequate U.S. deterrent forces in the Pacific.”

Andrei Lankov, Associate Professor at Kookmin University in Seoul, writes, “It is difficult to believe that any effort to reverse the tremendous social changes of the past fifteen years will be completely successful. Still, the period of largely unhindered de-Stalinization from below is over. North Korean authorities are working hard to re-Stalinize the country and to revive the old patterns of a centrally planned and heavily controlled state socialism.”

Scott Snyder, Director of the Center for U.S.-Korea Policy at The Asia Foundation and a Senior Associate at Pacific Forum CSIS, writes, “Obama administration must go beyond a focus on disciplining North Korea’s leaders and offer a positive vision for the future of the Korean peninsula and Northeast Asia that would clarify US expectations and intentions toward the region.”