Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
The United States will have trouble keeping South Korea from going nuclear if it can't contain the threat from Pyongyang.
Although tensions are mounting on the Korean peninsula, China is unlikely to fundamentally alter its North Korea policy.
Stabilizing the Korean Peninsula requires regional solidarity. Tougher sanctions or high-level dialogue with Pyongyang could erode that necessary cohesion.
North Korea is dangerously close to crossing the line that separates being a rogue state from being a parody of a rogue state.
Tensions with North Korea are rising as the United States strengthens its missile defense in response to threats.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has used strong words against North Korea after the country threatened to attack the United States.
President Barack Obama should articulate a narrowed framework for the legitimate use of nuclear weapons that the United States believes would be defensible for others to follow as long as nuclear weapons remain.
In China, nonproliferation continues to be framed as an excuse behind which Washington and its allies are able to engage in provocative and destabilizing acts.
It no longer makes strategic sense for China to support North Korea.
For denizens of the southern half of the Korean Peninsula, North Korea's third nuclear test was so threatening that it has moved onto center stage a once-fringe debate about whether South Korea should acquire nuclear weapons of its own.