The Analysis of the Feature of the Korea Peninsula Peace Debate Based on the North Korea Policy in South Korea

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 7-29
Author(s):  
Eun-joo Park ◽  
◽  
Ho-yeol Yoo
Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Patrick McEachern

After a year of trading colorful barbs with the American president and significant achievements in North Korea’s decades-long nuclear and missile development programs, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared mission accomplished in November 2017. Though Kim's pronouncement appears premature, North Korea is on the verge of being able to strike the United States with nuclear weapons. South Korea has long been in the North Korean crosshairs but worries whether the United States would defend it if North Korea holds the American homeland at risk. The largely ceremonial summit between US president Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, and the unpredictability of both parties, has not quelled these concerns and leaves more questions than answers for the two sides' negotiators to work out. The Korean Peninsula’s security situation is an intractable conflict, raising the question, “How did we get here?” In this book, former North Korea lead foreign service officer at the US embassy in Seoul Patrick McEachern unpacks the contentious and tangled relationship between the Koreas in an approachable question-and-answer format. While North Korea is famous for its militarism and nuclear program, South Korea is best known for its economic miracle, familiar to consumers as the producer of Samsung smartphones, Hyundai cars, and even K-pop music and K-beauty. Why have the two Koreas developed politically and economically in such radically different ways? What are the origins of a divided Korean Peninsula? Who rules the two Koreas? How have three generations of the authoritarian Kim dictatorship shaped North Korea? What is the history of North-South relations? Why does the North Korean government develop nuclear weapons? How do powers such as Japan, China, and Russia fit into the mix? What is it like to live in North and South Korea? This book tackles these broad topics and many more to explain what everyone needs to know about South and North Korea.


Significance South Korea’s unification minister (MOU) warned on April 10 that any US strike on North Korea would put “the safety of the public” at risk. A day later, Seoul’s defence (MND) and foreign (MFA) ministries dismissed rumours on local social media of an imminent war crisis as “overblown” and “groundless”, respectively. Moon Jae-in, the liberal opposition candidate whom most polls predict will win the May 9 snap presidential election, said he does not expect a US pre-emptive strike on the North. However, Moon also warned Washington that South Korea is “the concerned party” which “owns” peninsula-related matters, including the nuclear issue. Impacts Experienced military professionals in Trump’s cabinet and National Security Council are a restraining influence. South Korea and Japan, being in the front line, will counsel their US protector against any action that might imperil their security. If Moon Jae-in is elected, his desire to re-engage the North will clash with Trump’s hard-line attitude and narrow nuclear focus. After his smooth -- if insubstantial -- summit with Xi, Trump’s threatened unilateralism on North Korea is likely to stop at sanctions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 262
Author(s):  
Aucky Adi Kurniawan

<div><p class="Els-history-head">The study seeks to explain North Korea's political behavior that tends to act defensively and offensively which has often been represented as a dangerous country. Moreover, historically, the events of the Korean War that led to the breakup of Korea into two parts, the northern part that is associated with the Soviet Union and the southern part that is joined by the United States, makes the relationship between the two countries increasingly conflictual. Coupled with the formation of two axes of power since the collapse of the Soviet Union, North Korea is allied with its ideological one brother China, and South Korea is allied with the United States. The political escalation between the two countries continues to rise, resulting in the relationship of two becoming very conflictual, and because of that, the rivalry that is formed between the two countries raises various potential conflicts that couldn't be avoided. This research used the congruent method by used the balance of threat theory from Stephen Walt who argued that the state reacts to the perceived threat rather than power, and aims to balance it. The results found that North Korea's defensive - offensive actions were motivated by distrust of America-allied South Korea through several joint exercise programs on the peninsula that is considered a form of threat. Overall, the main argument of this research is the North Korea’s defensive - offensive actions are determined by the attitudes of South Korea and its ally the United States.</p></div>


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-74
Author(s):  
Nam Kwang Kyu

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present the North Korea policy pursued by the Moon Jae-in administration and discuss the possibility of a weakened alliance between South Korea and the USA. Design/methodology/approach This paper compares the North Korean policies and the ROK–US alliance under the Moon administration, analyzing the recent inter-Korean and North Korea–US summits, with a focus on the issues of denuclearization and establishing a peace regime. Findings This paper reveals that the approach taken by the Moon administration regarding North Korea is similar to that of North Korea and China, and that the ROK–US alliance is likely to weaken should there be any change concerning the North Korean nuclear issue. Originality/value Denuclearization takes place in accordance with the agreement between North Korea and the USA, there is a high likelihood of the ROK–US alliance weakening.


Asian Survey ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Kil Joo Ban

North Korea’s asymmetric provocations over the last decades can be classified into two periods: tactical provocations at sea in 1970–1990 and strategic (nuclear) provocations in 2000–2020. What is the logic underlying the North Korean imbroglio? And how does the former period differ from the latter? The first set of provocations was intended to shift the threat imbalance caused by a widening gap in conventional military capabilities into a balance of insecurity, where the weaker North Korean side faced South Korea and the combined ROK–US forces. The second set was intended to shift the balance of insecurity into an imbalance of terror while ensuring that only Pyongyang would be armed with nuclear weapons in the area. The “gray zone” discourse of the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula (rather than North Korea) ended up bolstering North Korea’s nuclear program, while South Korea intensified only its conventional weapons program.


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