The Combination of the North Korean Nuclear Weapons Program and the Memories of Colonialization of the Korean Peninsula: Formation of Nuclear Nationalism in North Korea

Asia Review ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 231-262
Author(s):  
Choongkoo Lee
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Korean Peninsula ◽  
North Korea ◽  
The North

Dialogue with John Dunn on Korean Denuclearization

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 293-311
Author(s):  
Sang-Jin Han
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Korean Peninsula ◽  
North Korea ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Global Risk ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
The North ◽  
Fundamental Limit ◽  
National Division ◽  
Reasonable Solution

This dialogue addresses the global risk that broke out of the North Korean development of nuclear weapons and missiles. It starts from the brutal consequences of the national division for Korea and asks why North Korea has been so preoccupied with nuclear projects as has been found to be the case since the 1990s, and how much and why Kim Jung-un today differs from his father in terms of his future, and where the fundamental limit lies in Moon Jae-In’s as well as Trump’s approaches to Korean denuclearization and peace. The highlight of this dialogue is to explain the intrinsic difficulties for Donald Trump and Kim Jung-un in finding a reasonable solution to their respective demands for denuclearization and regime security, and explore the likely future of the Korean Peninsula from the vantage point of Kim Dae-jung’s Sunshine Policy and metamorphosis.

Lopsided Security on the Korean Peninsula

Asian Survey ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Kil Joo Ban
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Korean Peninsula ◽  
North Korea ◽  
Gray Zone ◽  
Nuclear Program ◽  
The North ◽  
Conventional Weapons

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.

The EU's Economic Cooperation with North Korea: The Possibility as a Useful Tool to Complement Korea-US Cooperation

2009 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jong-Sue Lee
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Korean Peninsula ◽  
North Korea ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Position ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
The North ◽  
The Eu

North Korea conducted 2nd nuclear test on May 25, 2009. It made a vicious circle and continued military tension on the Korean Peninsula. North Korea regime got a question on the effectiveness of the six party talks and ‘security-economy exchange model’. In addition, the North Korea probably disappointed about the North Korea issue has been excluded from the Obama administration's policy position. So the dialogue or relationship recovery with the United States and North Korea through six-party talks or bilateral talks will be difficult for the time being. This paper examines the EU policy on North Korea. Based on the results, analyzes the EU is likely to act as a balancer on the Korean Peninsula. Through the procedure of deepening and expanding the economic and political unification, the EU utilizes their cooperative policies towards North Korea as an ideal opportunity to realize their internal value and to confirm the commonness within the EU members. The acceleration of the EU's unification, however, began to focus on human rights, and this made their official relationship worse. Yet, the EU is continuously providing food as wells as humanitarian and technological support to North Korea regardless of the ongoing nuclear and human rights issues in North Korea. Also, the number of multinational corporations investing in North Korea for the purpose of preoccupying resources and key industries at an individual nation's level has been increasing. The European Union has unique structure which should follow the way of solving the problem of member states like subsidiary principle. It appears to conflict between normative power of the European Union and strategic interests on member states. This paper examines if the European Union is useful tool to complement Korea-US cooperation in the near future.

«Nuclear Alarms» at Korean Peninsula

2013 ◽  
pp. 3-16
Author(s):  
A. Fenenko
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Korean Peninsula ◽  
North Korea ◽  
Fuel Cycle ◽  
Nuclear Fuel Cycle ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nuclear Facilities ◽  
Military Conflict ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Plutonium Production

During the last twenty years Washington has used the “counter-proliferation strategy” in Korean Peninsula. The Americans demanded that North Korea eliminate its nuclear arsenals and plutonium production facilities under the watchful eye of the “five powers’ commission” or the IAEA. Pyongyang's recent military provocation may now raise the specter of the United States or even South Korea delivering non-nuclear strikes against its nuclear facilities. That would give the USA an opportunity to raise the question of whether certain regimes should be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons or even to develop nuclear fuel cycle capacity. The last crises demonstrated that under certain circumstances North Korea could also initiate a military conflict in East Asia.

The juche H-bomb? North Korea, nuclear weapons and regime-state survival

2020 ◽  
Vol 96 (4) ◽  
pp. 1051-1068
Author(s):  
Edward Howell
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
North Korea ◽  
International Perspective ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Rogue States ◽  
The North ◽  
North Korean Defectors ◽  
Domestic Level ◽  
North Korean Regime ◽  
State Survival

Abstract Existing scholarship on North Korea's nuclear programme remains overwhelmingly centred around questions of containment or engagement with the North Korean regime-state, amid international calls for denuclearization. Yet, scholarship has rarely interrogated the precise value of nuclear weapons to the regime-state. This article develops a new theoretical framework of nuclear ideology to explore the puzzle of the survival of North Korea. This framework aims to show how the North Korean nuclear programme is deeply entrenched within the state ideology of juche, as one device for continued regime-state survival. Through interviews with elite North Korean defectors and textual analysis of North Korean and international sources, I show that North Korea's nuclear ideology has been constructed according to different frames of meaning, targeting referent actors of international ‘enemy’ powers and domestic audiences. This article concludes that nuclear ideology functions primarily as a tool to arouse domestic legitimacy for the North Korean regime-state, by targeting elite actors within the highly stratified domestic population. From an international perspective, perception of North Korea's survival remains tied largely to the regime-state's physical possession of nuclear weapons. This article has extremely timely theoretical and policy implications given the current ‘dialogue’ between US and North Korean leaders. First, it opens up fruitful avenues of inquiry surrounding questions of the legitimacy of rogue states within international relations. Secondly, this article calls for a more robust understanding of the domestic-level politics of North Korea, in order to understand the regime-state's foreign policy decisions vis-à-vis its nuclear programme.

North Korea

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick McEachern
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Korea ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
North Korea ◽  
The United States ◽  
Pop Music ◽  
Nuclear Program ◽  
Foreign Service ◽  
The North ◽  
American President

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.

scholarly journals The Korean Nuclear Imbroglio: Can India be a Muted Spectator?

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 17-34
Author(s):  
Sitakanta Misra
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Korean Peninsula ◽  
North Korea ◽  
Spillover Effects ◽  
North Asia ◽  
Perceived Security ◽  
The Impact

The presence of nuclear weapons in North Korea has complicated the strategic scenario in North Asia in general and Korean peninsula in particular. Unless the perceived ‗security deficit‘ with North Korea, due to its nuclear weapons‘ programme is amicably addressed, especially by reducing America‘s dominant presence in the region, demanding North Korea‘s denuclearisation would be unrealistic. Thus, the nuclear imbroglio in Korean Peninsula would endure. The outcomes of the Korean crisis will have serious spillover effects on South and East Asia. As a ‗rising‘ super power, India needs to reflect on her role in the unfolding strategic scene in its extended neighbourhood. This article provides an analysis of the strategic condition India is in and the impact of intervening in nuclear issues involving Super Powers in South and East Asia.

scholarly journals Famine and Reform in North Korea

2004 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcus Noland
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
North Korea ◽  
Economic Reforms ◽  
Food Crisis ◽  
The North ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Korean Food

North Korea has been in a food emergency for more than a decade and in the 1990s experienced a famine that may have claimed one million lives. The crisis is distinguished by its protracted nature, and although conditions have eased somewhat in recent years, the situation remains precarious, and the country could lapse back into famine. This paper reviews the origins of the North Korean food crisis, the impact of the 1990s famine, and the prospects for resolution of the emergency in light of economic reforms initiated in 2002 and the subsequent diplomatic confrontation over the country's nuclear weapons program.

President Moon Jae-in's Policy on the Settlement of the Inter-Korean Relations: Searching for a Balance between the Desirable and the Possible

2021 ◽  
pp. 107-117
Author(s):  
Valery Yu. Mishin ◽  
◽  
Anna V. Simonenok ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Korean Peninsula ◽  
North Korea ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
Practical Implementation ◽  
The South ◽  
The North ◽  
The Republic

Moon Jae-in came to power in May 2017 in the wake of the Korean political crisis and impeachment of the previous president Park Geyn-hye. Since the very first days of his leadership President Moon has set a course for a sequential transformation of the inter-Korean relations and prevention of the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula. The cornerstone of his program was the idea that the denuclearization of North Korea and the establishment of the long-lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula is possible provided that the North-South relations are normalized and Pyongyang is involved into the constructive peaceful dialogue. The authors demonstrate how Moon Jae-in was able to start the renaissance in the inter-Koran relations. He used the experience of the previous liberal governments of the Republic of Korea and successfully developed and enhanced the famous Sunshine Policy with his own ideas. The first stage of Moon Jane-in's presidency was marked with some serious foreign policy achievements. Thanks to the tactic of “summit diplomacy” President Moon was able to achieve significant reduction in tensions on the Korean Peninsula, which resulted in the fact that relations between the North and the South became more friendly and trustworthy. The historical documents signed during these summits - the Panmunjom Declaration (April 2018) and the Comprehensive Military Agreement (September 2018) - and their fast practical implementation can also be considered as President Moon's success. Further advancement of Moon Jae-in's course for building positive relationships with the DPRK faced serious obstruction from the United States. The authors show how simultaneously with settlement of inter-Korean relations President Moon had to deal with another difficult task - neutralization of the external factors (US sanctions and disagreements between Washington and Pyongyang) that were harmful for the development of the North Korea-South Korea relations. The tactics of being a mediator between the United States and North Korea chosen by Moon Jae-in was quite efficient in the beginning. The blatant enemies - Pyongyang and Washington - clamped down on their confrontation and sat at the negotiating table. However, the intransigence of Washington on the issue of a gradual and phase-based denuclearization of North Korea and withdrawal of sanctions altogether with the non-constructive criticism of the South Korean opposition made Moon Jae-in a hostage of the situation, limiting his potentially independent and substantive steps in foreign policy. Meanwhile, the authors of the research have come to the conclusion that on some issues President Moon was able to achieve much more than his predecessors. Despite the fact that he was unable to achieve a full-scaled settlement of the inter-Korean relations he did everything possible under the existing circumstances. Nowadays one can say that the challenges of the North Korean nuclear missile program and security on the Korean Peninsula are no longer entirely military topics, they are even more likely to be diplomatic issues. This fact is un-doubtfully his great accomplishment. Thus, it is possible to foresee good perspectives for the further declining level of the regional tensions and for the development of the inter-Korean relations.

South Korea may develop nuclear weapons

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Korean Peninsula ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Content Type ◽  
South Korean ◽  
The North ◽  
Produce Change ◽  
Democratic System ◽  
Near Future

Subject The risk of South Korea developing nuclear weapons. Significance The most serious political risk on the Korean peninsula, after war and the collapse of the North Korean regime, is the possibility that South Korea will develop nuclear weapons. This is extremely unlikely under the current administration but more plausible -- if still unlikely -- under the next. South Korea's democratic system could produce change very quickly, as democracies elsewhere did with Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. The weapons could probably be completed within a couple of years. Impacts Nuclear armament is more likely under a future conservative administration; the current centre-left government has ruled it out. South Korean nuclear armament would be a major setback for global non-proliferation efforts. Japan would be unlikely to follow suit in the near future, but resistance there would be eroded.

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