Policy Forum

Nautilus Institute’s Policy Forum‘s focus is on the timely publication of expert analysis and op-ed style pieces on the foremost of security-related issues to Northeast Asia. Its mission is to facilitate a multilateral flow of information among an international network of policy-makers, analysts, scholars, media, and readers. Policy Forum essays are typically from a wide range of expertise, political orientations, as well as geographic regions and seeks to present readers with opinions and analysis by experts on the issues as well as alternative voices not typically presented or heard. Feedback, comments, responses from Policy Forum readers are highly encouraged.

NAPSNet, Policy Forum

Policy Forum 08-053: Securing the Sulu Sea

Mark J. Valencia, a Maritime Policy Analyst and a Nautilus Institute Senior Associate, writes, “the littoral states of the Sulu Sea need to gain the “confidence” of the United States that they can – with capacity building and the right equipment – handle the problem themselves. The first steps would be to agree to co-ordinated patrols, ‘hand-off’ hot pursuit, and an ‘eye in the sky’ arrangement.”

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Policy Forum 08-052: Denuclearization and Peace Regime on the Korean Peninsula are Possible

Wooksik Cheong, representative of Peace Network Korea, writes, “Eventually, ‘practically complete denuclearization’ requires Bush’s determination as much as Kim Jong-il’s. Particularly, a DPRK-U.S. Summit is essential for a final agreement between the two nations. The most practical and symbolic way to show the end of hostile relations between the U.S. and DPRK is to create a scene of a firm handshake between Bush and Kim.”

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Policy Forum 08-051: Caution Against Overestimating Pyongyang’s Move

Andrei Lankov, an Associate Professor at Kookmin University, Seoul, and Adjunct Research Fellow at the Research School of Pacifica and Asian Studies, Australian National University, writes, “The efforts of the negotiators are not likely to produce the ideal outcome, that is, complete and verifiable destruction of all North Korean nuclear weapons. Nonetheless, it is possible to achieve the compromise, which will make the further increase of the North Korean nuclear arsenal difficult.”

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Policy Forum 08-050: North Korea: Presidential Action on State Sponsor of Terrorism (SST) and the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA)

The U.S. Department of State released this fact sheet on the disablement of the Yongbyon reactor, the lifting of the Trading with the Enemy Act with respect to the DPRK and intent to the rescind the DPRK’s designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism.

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Policy Forum 08-049: North Korea’s Nuclear Declaration: What to Expect

Ralph Cossa, President of the Pacific Forum CSIS, writes, “Some have argued that it would make more sense to wait until the list is delivered and verified before restrictions are lifted, and they are probably right. Unfortunately, that was not what Washington promised. If we have learned nothing else about North Korea we should know one thing by now: While Pyongyang might not be too good at living up to its own promises, it will not budge an inch if it perceives that others are not living up to theirs.”

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Policy Forum 08-048: North Korean Denuclearization: Beyond Phase II Disablement

Tong Kim, former senior interpreter at the U.S. State Department and now a visiting professor with the Graduate University of North Korean Studies, a research professor with Ilmin Institute of International Relations at Korea University and an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University SAIS, writes, “Final denuclearization would require the normalization of relations between the United States and the DPRK… Any way one looks at the prospects of the six party process, it clearly has a long way to go yet with many difficult problems to surmount in the path.”

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Policy Forum 08-047: Wenchuan as Eco-City

Emanuel Pastreich, Director of the Asia Institute at the SolBridge School of Business in Daejeon, South Korea and a senior fellow at the US-Japan-China Comparative Policy Research Institute (CPRI), and John Feffer, the co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies, write, “In that spirit of compassion, let us rebuild Wenchuan, the victim of an act of nature, with an eye toward rebuilding all of our cities, the victims of our blind embrace of unsustainable growth.”

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Policy Forum 08-046: We Have No Plan

Victor Cha, Director of Asian Studies at Georgetown University, adjunct Senior Fellow at the Pacific Council for International Policy, and former director of Asian Affairs for the U.S. National Security Council, writes, “It would be completely irresponsible not to have a quiet discussion among concerned governments about how to deal with potential North Korean instability… it has to be done — and done well — before the next rumor proves to be true.”

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Policy Forum 08-045: Koreas Not Eye-to-Eye on Vision 3000

Andrei Lankov, an Associate Professor at Kookmin University, Seoul, and Adjunct Research Fellow at the Research School of Pacifica and Asian Studies, Australian National University, writes, “sooner or later Lee Myong-bak and his advisers will have to reconsider the “Northern question” and come out with a strategy that has a chance to work… Quite likely, their answer will be some kind of engagement policy, in other words, a re-worked and re-branded version of the Sunshine Policy.”

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Policy Forum 08-044: Unsustainable Inequities: Saving the Japan-U.S. Alliance from Drift

Tobias Harris, a freelance journalist and author of Observing Japan, a blog that focuses on Japanese politics and East Asian international relations, and Douglas Turner, Founder and CEO of DW Turner, Inc, write, “The United States… must transform its thinking on the alliance. The framework wherein the United States delegates more tasks to Japan without giving Japan a greater share in determining the purpose of the alliance will ensure mounting Japanese resentment that will ultimately explode in a crisis.”

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