Conflict and Chaos on the Korean Peninsula: Can China's Military Help Secure North Korea's Nuclear Weapons?

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 84-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oriana Skylar Mastro
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Korean Peninsula ◽  
Gain Control ◽  
The United States ◽  
Regional Security ◽  
Nuclear Facilities ◽  
Nuclear Program ◽  
Nuclear Security ◽  
Security Training

Is China likely to intervene if war breaks out on the Korean Peninsula, and if so, does Beijing have the willingness and capabilities to deal safely with North Korea's nuclear program? Securing and destroying Pyongyang's nuclear weapons would be the United States’ top priority in a Korean contingency, but scholars and policymakers have not adequately accounted for the Chinese military's role in this mission. China's concerns about nuclear security and refugee flows, its expanding military capabilities to intervene, and its geopolitical competition with the United States all suggest that China is likely to intervene militarily and extensively on the Korean Peninsula if conflict erupted. In this scenario, Chinese forces would seek to gain control of North Korea's nuclear facilities and matériel. For the most part, China has the capabilities to secure, identify, and characterize North Korean nuclear facilities, though it exhibits weaknesses in weapons dismantlement and nonproliferation practices. On aggregate, however, Chinese troops on the peninsula would be beneficial for U.S. interests and regional security. Nevertheless, to mitigate the risks, the United States should work with China to coordinate their movements in potential areas of operation, share intelligence, and conduct combined nuclear security training.

«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 Iranian Nuclear Program (1974–2015)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas L. Miller
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Iranian Revolution ◽  
Nuclear Program ◽  
Comprehensive Plan ◽  
Credible Threat

This chapter analyzes US efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons from the 1970s until the conclusion of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2015. Iran initially began exploring nuclear weapons when it was an American client in the 1970s, prior to the development of a US sanctions policy. Once the United States strengthened its nonproliferation policy, a credible threat of sanctions helped convince Iran to scale back its nuclear plans. After the Iranian Revolution led to a complete break in relations with the United States, Iran again began seeking nuclear weapons, undeterred by the threat of sanctions due to its low dependence on the United States. After two decades of unilateral US pressure failed to alter Iran’s plans, stringent multilateral sanctions led Iran to agree to strict limits on its nuclear program.

The Pakistani Nuclear Program (1972–1987)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas L. Miller
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nuclear Test ◽  
Nuclear Program ◽  
Soviet Invasion

This chapter examines US nonproliferation efforts vis-à-vis Pakistan in the 1970s and 1980s. Although Pakistan started its nuclear weapons program prior to the development of a US sanctions policy, and thus underestimated the odds of facing sanctions, it nevertheless went on to acquire nuclear weapons. The United States was unable to halt the Pakistani program for two reasons. First, when it initially threatened and imposed sanctions on Pakistan in the late 1970s, Pakistan was not highly dependent on the United States and therefore had little to lose. Second, once Pakistan became dependent on the United States in the 1980s due to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and increased need for aid, the United States undermined the credibility of its nonproliferation policy by waiving sanctions and only credibly threatening to cut off aid in response to a nuclear test.

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.

Engaging the Estranged: Reciprocity and Cooperation on the Korean Peninsula

2003 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-198
Author(s):  
Taehyun Kim
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North Korea ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fuel Oil ◽  
Nuclear Facilities ◽  
Uranium Enrichment ◽  
Heavy Fuel Oil ◽  
Energy Agency ◽  
Nuclear Program ◽  
Bilateral Agreement

North Korea has become the focus of international attention once again. In October 2002 it admitted to a visiting U.S. envoy of having a clandestine nuclear program through uranium enrichment, which is a violation of, among other things, the bilateral agreement it signed with the United States eight years ago. In retaliation, the United States canceled shipment of heavy fuel oil to North Korea, that shipment being part of the agreement to compensate for North Korea's abandonment of its nuclear program. Since then, North Korea has astonished the world with a series of highly provocative moves: it restarted the nuclear facilities that it had frozen since 1994; expelled the inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); declared immediate withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT); and threatened to resume test-firing long-range missiles that it voluntarily stopped in 1998.

Pyongyang Sees the Nuke Impasse

2007 ◽  
Vol 42 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 245-261
Author(s):  
Han S. Park
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Korean Peninsula ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nuclear Program ◽  
Security Environment ◽  
Self Reliance ◽  
Mind Set ◽  
Foreign Policy Strategies

In order to better understand and explain North Korea's foreign policy strategies and tactics on the controversy surrounding the nuclear program, this chapter examines the perceptions held by Pyongyang about the neighbouring counties including the United States, Japan, and South Korea. These perceptions are formulated in accordance with North Korea's perception about itself that is generally constructed based on the principle of Juche (self-reliance) and the political and security environment surrounding the Korean peninsula as perceived by Pyongyang itself. North Korea is an unconventional country if one looks from outside but it is not irrational in that it has pursued its own national interest rather effectively for which security is first and foremost. This chapter provides an explanation of North Korean conducts from the perspective of North Korea's own mind-set.

scholarly journals Recasting ‘Nuclear-Free Korean Peninsula’ as a Sino-American Language for Co-ordination

2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-81
Author(s):  
TAKU TAMAKI
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Korean Peninsula ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Bilateral Relationship ◽  
The North ◽  
The Us ◽  
Nuclear Issue ◽  
Constructivist Perspective

AbstractA series of Six-Party Talks involving the United States, China, Japan, South and North Korea, and Russia resulted in the emergence of a narrative of a ‘nuclear-free Korean Peninsula’. Given the prevalence of nuclear weapons amidst Sino-American rivalry, the area is hardly ‘nuclear-free’. Instead, the phrase has evolved into a common signifier for the US and China, suggesting that, despite their rivalries, the North Korean nuclear issue can be detrimental for both – a rare convergence of interests in an often sensitive bilateral relationship. This article provides a Constructivist perspective to this particular aspect of Sino-American balance of power by taking the language of ‘nuclear-free’ seriously, recasting the phrase as borne of both mutual scepticism, as well as convergent interests, over the Korean Peninsula.

scholarly journals Our remaining options for preventing a nuclear Iran

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 92-98
Author(s):  
Thomas MacDonald ◽  
Peter Roemer ◽  
Ethan Klein
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Nuclear Weapon ◽  
Economic Sanctions ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Agreement ◽  
Policy Options ◽  
Nuclear Program ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Comprehensive Plan

Fifty years ago the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), an international agreement that seeks to limit the spread of nuclear weapons, went into effect. Under the NPT, all countries party to the treaty are permitted to develop nuclear technologies for peaceful activities, but countries without nuclear weapons are not permitted to divert those technologies to manufacture nuclear weapons. In 2003, it was determined that Iran had pursued nuclear weapons under the guise of its civilian nuclear program, violating its NPT commitments. Unified international economic sanctions brought Iran to the negotiating table, resulting in the Iran Deal, formally termed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), signed in 2015. The Iran deal placed additional limits beyond NPT restrictions, on materials and activities that could be diverted to developing a nuclear weapon, extending the time needed for Iran to develop a nuclear weapon from a few months to roughly a year. This changed when the United States unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA in May 2018 and Iran announced the following year that it would no longer be bound by the terms of the deal. Lacking the added restrictions of the Iran deal, Iran has begun ramping up domestic nuclear activities, raising fears that they may pursue development of a nuclear weapon. The United States has several policy options available in seeking to forestall such an outcome. This article discusses the advantages and disadvantages of several of these options, including economic sanctions, counterproliferation military action, or return to the JCPOA or a similar diplomatic agreement. The return to a cooperative agreement such as the Iran deal, though made challenging by mutual distrust, is assessed to provide the best chance to prevent Iran from resuming a nuclear weapons program.

scholarly journals On the Security of the Asia-Pacific Region in the Light of the Security Problem of the Korean Peninsula

2021 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 31-37
Author(s):  
Y. V. Samovich ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Korean Peninsula ◽  
The United States ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
Regional Security ◽  
Pacific Region ◽  
Asia Pacific Region ◽  
Nuclear Program ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
Security Problem ◽  
Nuclear Issue

The security issues of the Asia-Pacific region have been analyzed against the background of the ongoing situation with the nuclear program being conducted in the DPRK. The situation is complicated by the confrontation of other stakeholders pursuing their own interests, primarily the United States and China. Russia's position on the nuclear issue in the Korean peninsula and regional security in general also has a significant impact on the process.

The Iran “Threat” In a Kafkaesque World

2012 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward S. Herman ◽  
David Peterson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
News Media ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Weapons Of Mass Destruction ◽  
Mass Destruction ◽  
Energy Agency ◽  
Nuclear Program ◽  
Multilateral Institutions

From June 2003 to August 2012, the International Atomic Energy Agency published thirty-eight full written reports on Iran's nuclear program and conducted numerous inspections in the country. Yet although the Agency has never determined that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, Iran has never been able to free itself from the relentless U.S. campaign against its nuclear program. This article shows how the United States has mobilized the multilateral institutions to place Iran's nuclear program on the international stage and kept it there. It also examines the parallel role played by the news media, which have resumed their role of a decade ago when they helped Washington make a fraudulent case for invading Iraq on “weapons of mass destruction” grounds. The essay contends that the alleged Iranian nuclear weapons threat is a U.S. and Israeli propaganda construct intended to mask their own real threat to attack Iran.

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