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?
The United States, South Korea, China, and Japan must work together to offer a combination of security and economic incentives to make denuclearization a reasonable alternative for North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
As tensions between the United States and North Korea continue to simmer, questions arise concerning what war with a nuclear-powered North Korea would look like.
Increased risk-taking concerning North Korea’s nuclear ambitions could potentially pay off, but there’s a catch.
What are the realistic implications of North Korea's nuclear capability?
As North Korea develops an array of missiles that could deliver a nuclear weapon to the continental United States, that further complicates the tension over defending U.S. allies in the region.
North Korea’s steady development of nuclear forces raises questions about why Pyongyang used its nuclear program to pursue coercive diplomacy in the past, and when the regime was in the strongest position to leverage this nuclear latency as an instrument of compellence against the United States.
North Korea has nuclear weapons, something that won’t change anytime soon. As bad as this is, recognizing that status in a way that paves the road for South Korea to follow suit would be even worse.
With the July 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action diminishing the near-term prospect of an Iranian nuclear bomb, most proliferation prognosticators would likely pick South Korea, Japan, or perhaps Taiwan as the next place that could opt to develop nuclear weapons.
What are the timing implications of North Korea's latest missile test?
President-Elect Donald Trump appears to have drawn a red line against North Korea’s acquiring the capability to threaten the United States with a nuclear-armed ballistic missile. Can he enforce it?