Donald P. Gregg, National Security Adviser to Vice President George H. W. Bush from 1982 to 1988, Ambassador to Korea from 1989 to 1993, and Chairman Emeritus of the Korea Society, writes, “Mr. Carter, known for his independence and his willingness to enter into controversy, may well have come back with more than Mr. Gomes. The insights he will have picked up from his talks with top leaders other than Kim Jong-il should coincide with an emerging realization within the Obama administration that its current stance toward the North, featuring sanctions and hostility, is having little positive impact, and that a return to some form of dialogue with Pyongyang needs to be considered… There also is a growing realization in Washington that alienating China is an inordinately high price to pay for putting pressure on Pyongyang. So the White House, in choosing to send Mr. Carter at this time, may deserve credit for seeking to change a hostile stance toward North Korea into a more effective policy.”

This article by Peter Hayes, Executive Director of the Nautilus Institute, was delivered at the 2010 DMZ Peace Congress in Seoul on August 12-14, 2010. The paper reflects on how indirect and incremental social and political engagement may be a necessary attribute of strategies that build ecological security in a conflict zone. It concludes by contrasting this approach to the characteristics of what the author terms “nuclear insecurity” and suggests that a Northeast Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone may be a form of nuclear insecurity that relies less on balances of terror, and thereby is more conducive to the creation of sustainable security in this region.