Policy Forum

This report, published by the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University, notes, “North Korean authorities are emphasizing the modernization of factories and enterprises throughout the country since 2000. They are faced, however, with shortages of the necessary capital, materials, and equipment, not one of which is easily resolved. Because of this, North Korea has pulled out all the stops with a policy of pursuing the formation of foreign joint-ventures and cooperatives.”

Joseph A.B. Winder, President of Winder International, writes, “A failure of the KORUS FTA negotiations would represent a serious setback to the overall U.S. relationship. If agreement cannot be reached in an area, which is so clearly win-win for both sides, then how are the two countries to deal with the difficult political/security issues where a mutually satisfactory resolution of many issues is less clearcut?”

This report, published by the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University, notes, “It is being stressed that the amount of effort concentrated on making North Korea a nuclear power will now be focused on improving the lives of its citizens, and efforts previously reserved for strengthening military might will now be used not only to improve the military but also to prepare the framework for an economically powerful country.”

Jonathan D. Pollack, Professor of Asian and Pacific Studies and a former chairman of the Strategic Research Department at the U.S. Naval War College, where he also directs the college’s Asia-Pacific Studies Group, outlines three “three alternative scenarios for North Korea’s nuclear weapons development over the coming decade: (1) pursuit of a symbolic nuclear capability, (2) pursuit of an operational nuclear deterrent, and (3) a deficient or failed effort to achieve an operational capability.”

Christopher W. Hughes, Associate Professor at the University of Warwick and author of Japan’s Reemergence as a “Normal” Military Power and Japan’s Security Agenda: Military, Economic and Environmental Dimensions, writes, “Hence, the United States faces a major challenge in attempting to roll back the North Korean nuclear program and may already have failed in this endeavour. Failure of the United States and the region to halt North Korea’s nuclear program need not yet dissolve, however, into a process of wider nuclear proliferation in the region. Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan look set to continue to hedge their nuclear bets as long as the United States remains implacable and engaged in its security commitments.”

Joel S. Wit, a former U.S. Department of State official and coauthor of Going Critical: The First North Korean Nuclear Crisis, writes, “A policy of enhanced engagement that articulates a positive vision for the Korean peninsula and Northeast Asia; seeks to rapidly identify common ground with Pyongyang; builds productive communication; sets negotiating priorities; establishes realistic nuclear objectives; and creates a successful, sustained process of implementation holds the best chance for resolving the crisis and securing U.S. interests.”

Andrei Lankov, lecturer in the faculty of Asian Studies, China and Korea Center, Australian National University, writes, “news emanating from the North since late 2004 seems to indicate that the government is now working hard to turn the clock back, to revive the system that existed until the early 1990s and then collapsed under the manifold pressures of famine and social disruption.”

James Church (a pseudonym) is the author of the detective novel, A Corpse in the Koryo, St. Martin’s Press, New York, 2006. In this essay, Church meets Inspector O, the primary fictional character in A Corpse in the Koryo and discusses the state of play in the DPRK after the October 9th nuclear test.

Peter Hayes, Executive Director of the Nautilus Institute, contributes this review of A Corpse in the Koryo by James Church, a detective novel set in North Korea. Peter writes, “Those who want to really understand what is happening in North Korea should read this book, not only because it is gripping, but because it is the best unclassified account of how North Korea works and why it has survived all these years when the rest of the communist world capitulated to the global market a decade ago. This novel should be required bedtime reading for President Bush and his national security team.”

Inspector O And The Case Of The Missing Tea Thermos Inspector O And The Case Of The Missing Tea Thermos Policy Forum Online 06-105A: December 18th, 2006 Inspector O And The Case Of The Missing Tea Thermos Article by Peter Hayes CONTENTS I. Introduction II. Article by Peter Hayes III. Nautilus invites your responses I. […]