scholarly journals Recasting ‘Nuclear-Free Korean Peninsula’ as a Sino-American Language for Co-ordination

2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-81
Author(s):  
TAKU TAMAKI
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Korean Peninsula ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Bilateral Relationship ◽  
The North ◽  
The Us ◽  
Nuclear Issue ◽  
Constructivist Perspective

AbstractA series of Six-Party Talks involving the United States, China, Japan, South and North Korea, and Russia resulted in the emergence of a narrative of a ‘nuclear-free Korean Peninsula’. Given the prevalence of nuclear weapons amidst Sino-American rivalry, the area is hardly ‘nuclear-free’. Instead, the phrase has evolved into a common signifier for the US and China, suggesting that, despite their rivalries, the North Korean nuclear issue can be detrimental for both – a rare convergence of interests in an often sensitive bilateral relationship. This article provides a Constructivist perspective to this particular aspect of Sino-American balance of power by taking the language of ‘nuclear-free’ seriously, recasting the phrase as borne of both mutual scepticism, as well as convergent interests, over the Korean Peninsula.

scholarly journals Inter-Korean Relations: Factors and Prospects

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 151-175
Author(s):  
O. S. Pugacheva
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
South Korean ◽  
The North ◽  
The Us ◽  
Nuclear Issue ◽  
Severe Deterioration ◽  
Political Settlement

The relations between South Korea and North Korea were improved in 2018 on the basis of the Sunshine policy ideational platform and the inter-Korean agreements reached between the two countries under the progressive administrations of Kim Dae-jung in 2000 and Roh Moohyun in 2007. However, inter-Korean relations had been at a lull since the US-North Korea summit in Hanoi in February 2019 despite the intentions of the parties to develop diverse forms of cooperation. After that, the month of June saw a severe deterioration in the Inter-Korean relations. The aim of this article is to analyze the inter-Korean relations and the North Korean policies of the South Korean governments from 1998 to 2020 as well as explain the reasons behind Seoul’s inability to make progress in dialogue with Pyongyang. South Korea’s prioritizing of its ties with the United States as well as its increased dependence on the United States were the main reason behind the stagnation of inter-Korean relations. Under the international regime of sanctions against the DPRK, Moon Jae-In has failed to put the Sunshine policy into practice, for instance, re-open Kaesong Industrial Complex and Mount Kumgang tourism zone. The fact that inter-Korean economic cooperation was actually still linked to the denuclearization of the DPRK also had a negative impact on the prospects for maintaining the positive dynamics of inter-Korean relations. The exacerbation of inter-Korean relations in June 2020 showed that in the absence of practical inter-Korean cooperation and with the continuing deadlock in the US-North Korean negotiations on the nuclear issue, Pyongyang is not interested in normalizing relations with Seoul and it can concentrate on relations with the United States. At the same time, the intensifying confrontation between China and the United States in the Asia-Pacific region is not conducive to a political settlement of the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue and it can potentially lead to an aggravation of inter-Korean relations.

Japanese Policy toward the North Korean Problem

2007 ◽  
Vol 42 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 297-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tsuneo Akaha
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Korea ◽  
Korean Peninsula ◽  
North Korea ◽  
The United States ◽  
Urgent Problem ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
The North ◽  
Nuclear Issue ◽  
Nuclear Crisis

North Korea became an urgent problem for Japan as a result of the 1994 nuclear crisis in North Korea, the 1998 missile launch over Japan and the 2003—4 nuclear crisis. At the historic Tokyo—Pyongyang summit in September 2002, both sides acknowledged the need to solve the security issues surrounding the Korean Peninsula through peaceful, multilateral efforts. However, the issue of North Korean abduction of Japanese citizens in earlier decades intensified Japanese sentiment against the North and this issue halted bilateral normalization talks. Japan has participated in six-party talks on the nuclear issue since 2004, but its distinct bilateral interests vis-à-vis North Korea, South Korea and the United States limit its influence in the multiparty engagement.

The United States and the Iranian Nuclear Programme

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Hurst
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nixon Administration ◽  
Comprehensive Plan ◽  
The Us ◽  
Nuclear Issue ◽  
The Relationship

The United States, Iran and the Bomb provides the first comprehensive analysis of the US-Iranian nuclear relationship from its origins through to the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015. Starting with the Nixon administration in the 1970s, it analyses the policies of successive US administrations toward the Iranian nuclear programme. Emphasizing the centrality of domestic politics to decision-making on both sides, it offers both an explanation of the evolution of the relationship and a critique of successive US administrations' efforts to halt the Iranian nuclear programme, with neither coercive measures nor inducements effectively applied. The book further argues that factional politics inside Iran played a crucial role in Iranian nuclear decision-making and that American policy tended to reinforce the position of Iranian hardliners and undermine that of those who were prepared to compromise on the nuclear issue. In the final chapter it demonstrates how President Obama's alterations to American strategy, accompanied by shifts in Iranian domestic politics, finally brought about the signing of the JCPOA in 2015.

scholarly journals Quebec’s Economic and Commercial Linkages with the United States, 1994–2017

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Earl H. Fry
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Trade Agreement ◽  
The United States ◽  
The North ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Big Picture ◽  
The Impact

This article examines the ebb and flow of the Quebec government’s economic and commercial relations with the United States in the period 1994–2017. The topic demonstrates the impact of three major forces on Quebec’s economic and commercial ties with the US: (1) the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which became operational in 1994 and was fully implemented over a 15-year period; (2) the onerous security policies put in place by the US government in the decade following the horrific events of 11 September 2001; and (3) changing economic circumstances in the United States ranging from robust growth to the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The article also indicates that the Quebec government continues to sponsor a wide range of activities in the United States, often more elaborate and extensive than comparable activities pursued by many nation-states with representation in the US. 1 1 Stéphane Paquin, ‘Quebec-U.S. Relations: The Big Picture’, American Review of Canadian Studies 46, no. 2 (2016): 149–61.

scholarly journals THE GENESIS OF THE US FOREIGN POLICY: THE ORIGIN OF THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE TOPIC, 1610–1820S

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (73) (2) ◽  
pp. 81-93
Author(s):  
D. V. Dorofeev
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
North American ◽  
Alternative Hypothesis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
The North ◽  
The Us

The research is devoted to the study of the origin of the historiography of the topic of the genesis of the US foreign policy. The key thesis of the work challenges the established position in the scientific literature about the fundamental role of the work of T. Lyman, Jr. «The diplomacy of the United States: being an account of the foreign relations of the country, from the first treaty with France, in 1778, to the Treaty of Ghent in 1814, with Great Britain», published in 1826. The article puts forward an alternative hypothesis: the emergence of the historiography of the genesis of the foreign policy of the United States occurred before the beginning of the second quarter of the XIX century – during the colonial period and the first fifty years of the North American state. A study of the works of thirty-five authors who worked during the 1610s and 1820s showed that amater historians expressed a common opinion about North America’s belonging to the Eurocentric system of international relations; they were sure that both the colonists and the founding fathers perceived international processes on the basis of raison d’être. The conceptualization of the intellectual heritage of non-professional historians allowed us to distinguish three interpretations of the origin of the United States foreign policy: «Autochthonous» – focused on purely North American reasons; «Atlantic» – postulated the borrowing of European practice of international relations by means of the system of relations that developed in the Atlantic in the XVII–XVIII centuries; «Imperial» – stated the adaptation of the British experience. The obtained data refute the provisions of scientific thought of the XX–XXI centuries and create new guidelines for further study of the topic.

Shaping the postwar balance of power: multilateralism in NATO

1992 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 633-680 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Weber
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
The North ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The North Atlantic ◽  
Multilateral Organization ◽  
John Ruggie

At the end of the 1940s, the United States and several West European states allied to defend themselves against invasion by the Soviet Union. Balance-ofpower theory predicts the recurrent formation of such balances among states. But it says little about the precise nature of the balance, the principles on which it will be constructed, or its institutional manifestations. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has been a peculiar mix. As a formal institution, NATO has through most of its history been distinctly nonmultilateral, with the United States commanding most decision-making power and responsibility. At the same time, NATO provided security to its member states in a way that strongly reflected multilateral principles. Within NATO, security was indivisible. It was based on a general organizing principle, the principle that the external boundaries of alliance territory were completely inviolable and that an attack on any border was an attack on all. Diffuse reciprocity was the norm. In the terms set out by John Ruggie, NATO has generally scored low as a multilateral organization but high as an institution of multilateralism.

Iraq versus the United States

Tempting Fate ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 40-62
Author(s):  
Paul C. Avey
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Regime Change ◽  
The United States ◽  
Civil Defense ◽  
Military Action ◽  
The Us ◽  
Saddam Hussein ◽  
Political Dispute

This chapter provides a background for Iraqi behavior during the period of American nuclear monopoly beginning in 1979 when Saddam Hussein was officially Iraqi president, focusing most heavily on events in 1989–1991. In an intense political dispute, Iraqi leadership took actions they believed would fall below the threshold of nuclear use. Most of the limitations that Iraq exhibited were due to its own weakness; it could do little more. For Iraq as a weak actor, war with the United States was possible precisely because it would pose such a low danger to the United States. Even then, Iraqi leadership incorporated the US nuclear arsenal into their decision making in 1990–1991. That confrontation is the most important to examine because it involved Iraqi military action that Iraqi leaders believed would invite some form of US response, and US compellent demands did not center on Iraqi regime change. In 1990, Saddam and his lieutenants held their own unconventional weapons in reserve and discounted an American nuclear strike because of the high strategic costs that such a strike would impose on the United States. They also undertook various civil defense measures to minimize losses from nuclear strikes. Fortunately, the Americans had little intention of using nuclear weapons and did not face a need to resort to nuclear use.

Trial Balloons

2020 ◽  
pp. 84-105
Author(s):  
Simon Miles
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Force ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
East And West ◽  
General Secretary

This chapter is devoted to Konstantin Chernenko' efforts to shift superpower relations back to a détente-like footing during his time as a General Secretary of the Soviet Union. It examines attempts on the part of various Western leaders to carve out a role for themselves as the superpowers' chosen intermediary. It also investigates the balance of power between East and West, including how and why leaders in Washington and Moscow perceived and responded to each other as they did. The chapter analyzes the nuclear freeze movement, which has remained a political force to be reckoned with as the movement called for both superpowers to halt the construction and deployment of nuclear weapons. It talks about the freeze activists in the United States who shepherded the passage of nonbinding resolutions that support their cause in four state legislatures, the House, and the Senate.

The United States and Israel’s Nuclear Weapons Program, 1961–1973

2019 ◽  
pp. 64-111
Author(s):  
Jeffrey W. Taliaferro
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Power Distribution ◽  
The United States ◽  
Johnson Administration ◽  
Arms Transfers ◽  
The Us ◽  
Nuclear Issue ◽  
Secondary Objective ◽  
The Cold War

Chapter 3 posits that the overriding objective of the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations was to avoid containment failure in the Middle East. Thwarting the Israeli nuclear weapons program was a secondary objective. As Soviet arms sales to Egypt and Syria accelerated in the mid-1960s, the regional power distribution became unfavorable and the time horizons of threats to US interests grew shorter. The Johnson administration abandoned Kennedy’s demands for inspections of the Dimona reactor and instead sold M-48 tanks, A-4 Skyhawks, and later F-12 Phantoms to bolster Israel’s defenses. Congress, however, made it difficult for the Johnson and the Nixon administrations to link arms transfers to Israeli concessions on the nuclear issue. Chapter 3 examines the evolution of the US-Israeli strategic relationship against the backdrop of the Cold War from Kennedy’s demands for inspections in 1961 through the October 1973 Middle East War.

The continuing threat of nuclear war

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Cirincione
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
The North ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
Nuclear Winter

The American poet Robert Frost famously mused on whether the world will end in fire or in ice. Nuclear weapons can deliver both. The fire is obvious: modern hydrogen bombs duplicate on the surface of the earth the enormous thermonuclear energies of the Sun, with catastrophic consequences. But it might be a nuclear cold that kills the planet. A nuclear war with as few as 100 hundred weapons exploded in urban cores could blanket the Earth in smoke, ushering in a years-long nuclear winter, with global droughts and massive crop failures. The nuclear age is now entering its seventh decade. For most of these years, citizens and officials lived with the constant fear that long-range bombers and ballistic missiles would bring instant, total destruction to the United States, the Soviet Union, many other nations, and, perhaps, the entire planet. Fifty years ago, Nevil Shute’s best-selling novel, On the Beach, portrayed the terror of survivors as they awaited the radioactive clouds drifting to Australia from a northern hemisphere nuclear war. There were then some 7000 nuclear weapons in the world, with the United States outnumbering the Soviet Union 10 to 1. By the 1980s, the nuclear danger had grown to grotesque proportions. When Jonathan Schell’s chilling book, The Fate of the Earth, was published in 1982, there were then almost 60,000 nuclear weapons stockpiled with a destructive force equal to roughly 20,000 megatons (20 billion tons) of TNT, or over 1 million times the power of the Hiroshima bomb. President Ronald Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’ anti-missile system was supposed to defeat a first-wave attack of some 5000 Soviet SS-18 and SS-19 missile warheads streaking over the North Pole. ‘These bombs’, Schell wrote, ‘were built as “weapons” for “war”, but their significance greatly transcends war and all its causes and outcomes. They grew out of history, yet they threaten to end history. They were made by men, yet they threaten to annihilate man’.

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