Policy Forum

Aaron L. Friedberg, an East Asian expert who served as Vice President Dick Cheney’s deputy national security adviser from 2003 to 2005, says North Korea has boycotted new talks on ending its nuclear arms program because of the U.S. program of cracking down on North Korean counterfeiting and other illicit activities. But Friedberg says such pressure is the only way to hope for a breakthrough.

Stephen Noerper, head of the Institute of International Education’s Scholar Relief Fund, writes, “State sovereignty remains the paramount consideration in North East Asia relations. The debate centres on the necessary preconditions, size and mandates for institutions. Gaps could be filled by new institutions, but there is limited scope for honest brokers. There are opportunities for progress in non-traditional security issues, including on disease, natural disaster and crime.”

Yeo Lay Hwee, Executive Director and Senior Research Fellow at SIIA, and Lim Tai Wei, Research Associate at SIIA, analyze Condoleezza Rice’s statement that “China could become a ‘negative force’ in the Asia-Pacific region” and the impact of efforts to find a “common position on how to engage the Asian economic powerhouse” between the US, Japan, and Australia.

Policy Forum Online 06-19A: March 9th, 2006 “Strategic Flexibility of U.S. Forces in Korea”   Essay by Lee Chul-kee CONTENTS I. Introduction  II. Essay by Lee Chul-kee  III. Nautilus invites your responses   I. Introduction   Lee Chul-kee, a professor in international relations at the Dongguk University, writes, “We must build a cooperative multilateral security […]

Lee Chul-kee, a professor in international relations at the Dongguk University, writes, “We must build a cooperative multilateral security system for Northeast Asia, instead of a bilateral alliance system. Peace and reunification of Korean peninsula will be possible only when Northeast Asian order becomes multilateral, balanced and cooperative.”

Emanuel Pastreich, visiting scholar at the Center for East Asian Studies, University of Pennsylvania and a Japan Focus associate, writes, “The United States is losing its economic and cultural authority through the lethal mixture of ballooning trade deficits and torture scandals. The danger is that a classic military reflex will be one of the few tools left in the chest at a time when the U.S. needs a far more varied and sophisticated set of responses to negotiate successfully the path ahead.”

Read the discussion.

James Goodby, former U.S. ambassador to Finland and current Senior Fellow at the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at The Brookings Institution, and Markku Heiskanen, a senior Finnish diplomat, who is currently Associate Senior Fellow of the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, Copenhagen write, “Two inter-Korean railway corridors are now waiting for the first test trains to cross the demilitarized zone, for the first time in half a century. The EU supports the “Iron Silk Road”–the initiative of former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung to connect the Korean peninsula to Europe through a Eurasian railway network.”

Read discussion of this essay by Aidan Foster-Cater.

Read discussion of this essay by Georgy Bulychev.

Discussion of "Linking Europe and Northeast Asia" Discussion of “Linking Europe and Northeast Asia” Policy Forum Online 06-17A: March 2nd, 2006 “Discussion of ‘Linking Europe and Northeast Asia’” by James Goodby and Markku Heiskanen CONTENTS I. Introduction II. Comments on “Linking Europe and Northeast Asia” by Aidan Foster-Carter III. Nautilus invites your responses I. Introduction […]

Discussion of "Linking Europe and Northeast Asia" Discussion of “Linking Europe and Northeast Asia” Policy Forum Online 06-17A: March 2nd, 2006 “Discussion of ‘Linking Europe and Northeast Asia’” by James Goodby and Markku Heiskanen CONTENTS I. Introduction II. Comments on “Linking Europe and Northeast Asia” by Georgy Bulychev III. Nautilus invites your responses I. Introduction […]

Thomas B. Cochran, Matthew G. McKinzie, Robert S. Norris, Laura S. Harrison, and Hans M. Kristensen, analyzing China’s nuclear forces in the publication Imaging Notes, write, “While President George W. Bush and President Hu Jintao spent their time in November discussing economic and regional issues, both of their military establishments were busy modernizing the nuclear forces. China is nowhere near nuclear parity with the United States, but both countries seem poised to modernize their nuclear forces with an eye to the other’s intentions and capabilities.”