Daily Report Archives
Established in December 1993, the Nautilus Institute’s *N*ortheast *A*sia *P*eace and *S*ecurity *N*etwork (NAPSNet) Daily Report served thousands of readers in more than forty countries, including policy makers, diplomats, aid organizations, scholars, donors, activists, students, and journalists.
The NAPSNet Daily Report aimed to serve a community of practitioners engaged in solving the complex security and sustainability issues in the region, especially those posed by the DPRK’s nuclear weapons program and the threat of nuclear war in the region. It was distributed by email rom 1993-1997, and went on-line in December 1997, which is when the archive on this site begins. The format at that time can be seen here.
However, for multiple reasons—the rise of instantaneous news services, the evolution of the North Korea and nuclear issues, the increasing demand for specialized and synthetic analysis of these and related issues, and the decline in donor support for NAPSNet—the Institute stopped producing the Daily Report news summary service as of December 17, 2010.
United States 1. US Domestic Politics on DPRK Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld circulated to key members of the administration a Pentagon memorandum proposing a radically different approach: the US, the memo argued, should team up with the PRC to press for the ouster of the DPRK’s leadership. Rumsfeld’s team, administration officials said, was urging […]
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Alexandre Y. Mansourov argues Kim Jong Il’s game plan in Beijing includes a) treating the Chinese intermediaries as a pro-American party at the talks, which are best approached as a two against one boxing match; b) giving both, the PRC and the United States, an advance notice about pending initiation of reprocessing operations; c) tying down Washington at the negotiation table and buying time for military build-up at home; d) watching for the “canary in the mine” to die as an early warning signal about possible American attack; and e) framing the United States up in a way delegitimizing any U.S. unilateral military action against the North in the eyes of the international community. He further argues that the trilateral talks offer the United States a venue to present a real ultimatum to North Korea in the presence of Chinese witnesses – disarm and open up or else, with China’s tacit support behind the scenes for further enforcement action in case of the North Korean non-compliance. Dr. Mansourov concludes that the Beijing trilateral talks are likely to end up with a spectacular diplomatic disaster and may lead to further escalation of nuclear tensions on the Korean peninsula.
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