The essay below is by Phar Kim Beng. Beng asserts that living next to North Korea, a threatening neighbor that has the means and intent to go nuclear, Japan has every reason to follow suit. However, there is a whole gamut of issues, political, strategtic, psychological, and even technical, that Japan has to overcome before it can adopt a nuclear deterrent. Consequently, Japan cannot be a nuclear power in the foreseeable future. Beng is a Malaysian and former Asian Public Intellectual fellow attached to the United Nations University.

Dr. Alexandre Y. Mansourov argues that as the security dilemma facing the United States and North Korea in the current nuclear standoff aggravates, they increasingly fall into the war trap. Although Pyongyang and Washington talk peace, neither side has the interest nor will to negotiate at the present time. Instead, they are both stuck in the escalation mode and actively prepare for war. Dr. Mansourov suggests that perhaps, in the long run, a South Korean protectorate over the North Korean state, encompassing the areas of national security and foreign policy, can bring about peaceful resolution of the escalating nuclear crisis and guarantee peace and stability on the nuclear-free Korean peninsula.

Peter Hayes, Executive Director of the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability, argues that unless the Bush administration initiates talks directly with North Korea immediately, the United States will end up with a nuclear-armed North Korea, no military option to exercise, and a ruptured alliance with South Korea who will go-it-alone.