Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
North Korea’s evolving nuclear arsenal presents a complex security challenge. What can states and international organizations do to reduce immediate nuclear risks while planning for a longer term disarmament process?
By choosing to emulate certain aspects of U.S. nuclear policy and diverge from others, North Korea is attempting to simultaneously demonstrate a willingness to escalate a conflict while projecting an image of a responsible nuclear possessor that should be accommodated as such in the international system.
It wouldn’t be an altruistic giveaway to Pyongyang; it would help the United States and its Northeast Asian allies improve their own security.
New public opinion data finds robust support for a domestic nuclear weapons program in South Korea.
Diplomacy on the Korean Peninsula is stalled again. One option worth exploring is a trilateral cessation of missile testing and military exercises on the Korean Peninsula, essentially a “freeze for freeze” redux.
North Korea’s newest cruise missile test shows its nuclear capabilities are growing. Here’s what policymakers from the United States and elsewhere should do now to set up future negotiators for success.
While hopes remain for a reboot of nuclear talks with North Korea, a crucial but oft-overlooked question is how compliance with any negotiated agreement would be monitored and verified.
The most likely nuclear risk Pyongyang poses is spreading WMD technology in the Middle East.
The consolidation of nuclear and missile capabilities by North Korea points to the need for a new strategy to mitigate the potential for conflict: to pursue progress toward peace and denuclearization simultaneously.
It remains to be seen whether the Biden administration will change tack on North Korea policy and finally jettison “maximum pressure” approach in favor of a more practical attempt to work simultaneously toward peace and denuclearization.
By focusing exclusively on the traditional hard power implications of North Korea’s missile systems, analysts are missing much of Pyongyang’s strategy.