Special Reports

Mary Beth Dunham Nikitin, Analyst in WMD Nonproliferation at the Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division of the Congressional Research Service, writes, “Congress will have a clear role in considering U.S. funding for the disablement and decommissioning of North Korea’s nuclear facilities, as well as other inducements for cooperation as agreed in the Six Party talks. For example, the President has submitted a request to Congress for $106 million “to provide Heavy Fuel Oil or an equivalent value of other assistance to North Korea on an ‘action-for action’ basis in support of the Six Party Talks in return for actions taken by North Korea on denuclearization” as part of the 2008 War Funding Request.”

Richard Tanter, Director of the Melbourne Office of the Nautilus Institute, writes, “Australian nuclear policy does indeed need to be reviewed. But such reconsideration of our current policy failures needs to be genuinely and comprehensively realist, informed by abiding commitments to the avoidance of nuclear next-use, and eschewing any suggestion that if our half-hearted arms control measures do not bear fruit, then Australia too will take the genocidal option, and once again and try to join the nuclear club.”

The Second Session of the Sixth Round of the Six-Party Talks was held in Beijing among the People’s Republic of China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation and the United States of America from 27 to 30 September 2007. The parties released this joint statement.

Go to the U.S. State Department Response here.

William H. Cooper, Specialist in International Trade and Finance in the Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division at the Congressional Research Service, and Mark E. Manyin, Specialist in Asian Affairs in the Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division of the Congressional Research Service, describe the impact of the US-ROK Free Trade Agreement on the Kaesong Industrial Park. They write, “according to the details of the agreement released thus far, it appears the United States backed away from the principle of not ever expanding the KORUS FTA to North Korea-made products…[however] the United States would be able to control the decision to and pace of any move to grant preferential treatment to North Koreamade products.”

Dick K. Nanto, Specialist in Industry and Trade in the Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division of the Congressional Research Service, and Mark E. Manyin, Analyst in Asian Affairs in the Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division of the Congressional Research Service, write, “The United States currently has a mixed policy with respect to the KIC. Since South Korea is a close ally of the United States, Washington has been supportive of efforts by South Korea to engage the North in inter-Korean projects that benefit South Korea. On the other hand, the United States has been firm in predicating any economic or other concessions on actions by the DPRK to curtail or eliminate its nuclear program.”

Umebayashi Hiromichi, Founder and President of Peace Depot, a non-profit organization for peace research and education in Japan, writes, “These operations by US naval vessels homeported in Yokosuka tasked with ballistic missile defence of the US itself is an absolutely new development, one not provided for under the Japan-USA Mutual Security Treaty. This matter must be fully discussed from the point of view of control of military activities by law in both the international and national spheres.”

Dick K. Nanto, Specialist in Industry and Trade Foreign Affairs, Defense at the Congressional Research Service, and Trade Division, and Emma Chanlett-Avery, Analyst in Asian Affairs Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division at the Congressional Research Service, write, “U.S.-led financial sanctions on North Korea have disrupted that country’s trade. In the six-party talks, economic assistance (including fuel oil) is a major bargaining chip. Economic policy options include increasing or easing economic sanctions, preventing
shipments of illicit cargo, normalizing relations with Pyongyang, negotiating a trade agreement, allowing the DPRK to join international financial institutions, and removing the country from the terrorism list.”

Peter Hayes, Nautilus Institute Executive Director and David von Hippel, Nautilus Institute Senior Associate, write, “In the long run… it is critical that a substantial fraction of the energy aid agreed to at the Six Party Talks result in developmental outcomes for the people living in the DPRK. Falling short of this goal will leave the DPRK highly insecure, and one of the essential girders of a non-nuclear future for the Korean Peninsula, the social and political stability of the DPRK, will collapse.”

Peter Hayes, Nautilus Institute Executive Director and David von Hippel, Nautilus Institute Senior Associate, write, “This document is intended to provide a best estimate, given available data, of an internally-consistent year 2005 energy supply/demand balance for the DPRK, as well as balances for previous years prepared with similar methodologies… As this report is being finalized, the representatives of the countries participating in the Six-Party Talks on the DPRK’s nuclear program have come to an initial agreement on steps to be taken to address the differences between the parties. Provision of energy security is a critical element of a successful and robust resolution to the nuclear confrontation between the DPRK and the international community.”

Attachments are available here.

The Global Scenarios Workshop was convened by the Nautilus Institute at RMIT and Australia 21. This report from the workshop summarizes the narratives of the four scenarios developed at the workshop and uses these conceptions of the future to draw conclusions about threat perception, insecurity, and resiliency in the face of critical uncertainty. The report concludes that NGOs, civil society groups, and corporations all have an important role to play in issues of global problem solving and that “security is not an issue that can be left to governments alone.”