Stephan Haggard, Lawrence and Sallye Krause Professor of Korea-Pacific Studies and Director of the Korea-Pacific Program (KPP) at the University of California, San Diego School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, Marcus Noland, Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, and Erik Weeks, a research assistant at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, write, “Opening North Korea, through whatever channels possible, is the ultimate route toward a more prosperous future; if this crisis contributes to that process, it would constitute the only silver lining we can see at the moment to what is otherwise yet another sad chapter in the history of the North Korean people.”

Sourabh Gupta, Senior Research Associate at Samuels International Associates, Inc., writes, “With Beijing having internalized the imperative for a changed tone of voice with which it speaks to the Japanese and with nationalist revisionism perhaps having crested in Tokyo… the portents, going forward, this time around however seem a lot better.”

Siegfried S. Hecker, Professor at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University, and William J. Perry, Secretary of Defense from 1994 through 1997, write, “in its remaining months, the Bush administration should focus on limiting North Korea’s nuclear capabilities by concluding the elimination of plutonium production. If it can also get answers on the Syrian operation and resolve the question of uranium enrichment, it will put the next administration in a stronger position to finally end the nuclear threat from North Korea.”