The analysis below is by Steve LaMontagne, senior analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington, DC. LaMontagne notes that the Bush administration faces the same set of policy options as did the Clinton administration in the early 1990s when North Korea threatened to pull out of the Non-Proliferation Treaty: War, Isolation, or Diplomacy. While war and isolation entail considerable risks, diplomatic negotiations may find little support on Capitol Hill and among administration hawks who bristle at the thought of being blackmailed by Kim Jong Il. The key test of the administration’s commitment to a diplomatic solution to the North Korea nuclear problem will be whether or not it abandons diplomacy at the first sign of stubborn, erratic, or objectionable behavior by North Korea. If this happens, diplomacy could eventually give way to the threat of military action.

The essay below is by Ralph A. Cossa President of Pacific Forum CSIS. Cossa asserts that what President Bush needs to do during his summit meeting with ROK President Kim Dae-jung and Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro is to clearly spell out his preconditions for a resumption of US-DPRK dialogue. Moreover, President Bush should also reiterate his administration’s pledge to engage in constructive dialogue, once Washington’s immediate security concerns are satisfactorily (and verifiably) addressed. Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi should make it clear in his own statement that, while dialogue will continue, there will be no real progress toward normalization until the nuclear issue is resolved. Finally, South Korean President Kim, instead of pressuring Washington to resume talks with Pyongyang, must also endorse Washington’s preconditions and announce that further progress in North-South relations, and especially hard currency payments that could easily be diverted to pay for a nuclear weapons program, will also hinge on Pyongyang removing this clear and present danger to the people of South Korea.

The essay below, by Professor Victor D. Cha, Director of the American Alliances in Asia Project at Georgetown University, argues that President Bush’s meetings with Asian leaders at the APEC summit in Mexico this weekend provide the opportune moment to get the message right with regard to North Korea’s surprise admission of a secret nuclear weapons program. Over the past week, a debate has raged inside the US government and among outside experts about how to respond. Many moderates have argued that this new nuclear revelation is North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il’s perverse but typical way of creating crisis to pull a reluctant Bush administration into serious dialogue. Before the world accepts the North’s confession as a cry for help, Bush must convince his counterparts at Los Labos to see Pyongyang’s actions for what they are — a serious violation of a standing agreement that will in effect be North Korea’s last gambit at peaceful engagement with the United States and its allies.

Below is commentary by Hugo Wheegook Kim and Peter Hayes on Kim Myong Chol’s “Agreed Framework Is Brain Dead; Shotgun Wedding Is the Only Option to Defuse Crisis” posted on NAPSNet of October 24, 2002. The original piece can be found

The essay below is by Wada Haruki, Emeritus Professor of the University of Tokyo and a specialist in Russian and Korean history and politics. Haruki notes that while North Korea’s recent Japanese abduction admission and apologies are significant, North Korea must make much more clear how the people were abducted and how they died, punish those responsible for carrying out the crimes. They must search out the remains and hand them over, and make it possible for families to visit the graves of the deceased and to meet with survivors, and for the survivors to return to Japan. Despite all this, it is extremely important that agreement was reached at the Japan-North Korea summit to reopen the normalization talks and that basic principles were agreed for the deadlocked diplomatic negotiations. This is profoundly significant for the peace of Northeast Asia.