Author: John Delury and Chung-in Moon, Yonsei University

Last year’s sinking of the Cheonan, the revelation of a new uranium enrichment program at Yongbyon, and the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island brought North Korea back to the center of worldwide attention as a rogue regime.

Although the Obama Administration shows signs of interest in dialogue, Seoul appears bent on more sanctions, military exercises, and contingency planning, premised on the belief that a North Korean collapse may be nearing. Read more…

Author: Chung-in Moon and Sangkeun Lee, Yonsei University

The two Koreas remain engaged in a protracted arms race, jeopardising peace and stability on the Korean peninsula and in the region. A numbers analysis of military capabilities between the two Koreas suggests that North Korea is far superior to the South. The South leads the North only in three areas: the size of navy personnel, armoured vehicles, and helicopters. The North leads in all other areas.

However, a qualitative analysis renders quite a different outcome. Overall conventional defence capabilities favour the South due to more modern military equipments including many cutting-edge weapons. Read more…

Author: Chung-in Moon, Yonsei University, Seoul.

At the historic North-South summit in Pyongyang on June 15, 2000, there was a sense that lasting peace on the Korean peninsula lay just around the corner. I still cherish that moment when I was witness to a foundation of mutual trust being built through the expansion of cooperation and exchange between the two countries. The dismantling of the Cold War structure that had haunted the peninsula for decades never seemed more achievable.

As we reach the ninth anniversary of that hopeful event, the Korean peninsula is caught by a dramatically different vision, one in which the hard-earned progress of recent history has unraveled and left us worse off than where we began.

Given the success of the Clinton years and the diplomatic posture promised by President Obama, I anticipated that the new administration would adopt a more progressive policy towards North Korea based on the Clinton-Kim Dae-jung model.  Yet, a number of major domestic and international issues including the economic crisis, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and Palestine rendered North Korea a low policy priority for the Obama Administration.

That was until the April 5 rocket launch. Read more…

Author: Chung-in Moon, Yonsei University, Seoul

East Asia is likely to draw less attention from the Obama administration given the current preoccupation with Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East. Nevertheless, the United States shows no sign of lessening its engagement in the region.

A prudent realism under the Obama administration will seek a more active cooperation with China, while maintaining existing bilateral alliances with Japan and South Korea. In so doing, the Obama administration is likely to seek a new regional security architecture that combines a bilateral alliance system with a multilateral security cooperation regime. We can expect the US will shift its emphasis from the logic of balance of power to that of the power of balance.

Domestic issues will be the first order of business for President Obama. However, the North Korean nuclear issue is not likely to be left idle, as Obama has defined the prevention of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and defeating global terrorism as the twin pillars of his national security agenda. Hillary Clinton, his nominee for secretary of state, also made it clear during her Senate confirmation hearing that she will deal with the North Korean nuclear issue with urgency.

Read more…

Author: Chung-in Moon, Yonsei University

On December 2, the United States Congressional Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, in a bipartisan report entitled ‘World at Risk’, listed the halting of North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs as one of the biggest priorities in state affairs for the Obama administration when it takes office.
The report also highlights the fact that although peaceful solutions to the issue may be sought through diplomatic efforts such as direct negotiation, if these fail, the use of threats such as military activity must be considered.

But what is important at the present time is not a hard-line policy on the presumption of diplomatic failure but the refinement of a diplomatic solution.

There are two diplomatic courses available for future negotiations with North Korea. One of them is carrying out, within the framework of the six-party talks, the negotiations for ,verifiable dismantlement’, the third stage of the February 13 agreement that is a political legacy left behind by Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs Christopher Hill. The other is the method of starting anew with the ‘broad-minded’ negotiations with the North halted because of the Bush administration’s ‘ABC’ (Anything But Clinton) policy. This would be an extension of the October 2000 North Korea visit of then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

To be frank, the former approach offers little guarantee of success.

Read more…