Stephen Noerper, a former professor of international relations at New York University and the National University of Mongolia, provides an overview of Joe Biden’s recent visit to Mongolia. He writes, “Surprisingly the great lessons of the U.S. Vice President’s journey lie more with Mongolia than larger China or Japan—at least this time around.”

Gwisook Gwon, a lecturer in the Department of Sociology at Jeju National University, South Korea analyzes the ‘Save Jeju Island’ civil society movement, which has been protesting the construction of a naval base south-west of the Korean peninsula for the past ten years. Her article presents opposing discourses surrounding issues of democratic procedure, community solidarity and environmental protection in relation to the base’s construction.

Ken Jimbo, an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Policy Management, Keio University, writes, “We can reach a tentative assessment that deterrence failed in 2010, and is likely to fail again, but that escalation control succeeded. The recent incidents indicate a ‘stability–instability paradox’ on the Korean Peninsula — there is a decreasing probability of major war but an increasing probability of low-level conflicts.”

Joshua Pollack, a consultant to the US government, analyzes the discrepancies between news reports, which often claim Pyongyang sells large numbers of ballistic missiles abroad, and the actual contents of seized arms shipments. Pollack asserts that while there ahas recently been an unprecedented number of intercepted conventional arms shipments from North Korea, the number of complete missiles in such shipments has fallen dramatically since 1994 due to Western sanctions and an influx of missile suppliers on the global market.