scholarly journals Nuclear ROK and US’ Military Retrenchment: Changes of Approach toward Korean Peninsula Crisis

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 143
Author(s):  
Dzulfikar Fathur Rahman

North Korea has conducted sixth nuclear device tests by 2017. But the United States and South Korea persist on their current approach, that is pressure and sanction. The ways in which the United States and South Korea manage the Korean Peninsula crisis beg us to rethink, since the objective thereof, namely denuclearization, has not come into fruition. There are three problems to discuss. First, why North Korea keeps developing its nuclear weapons program. Second, why the current approach of the United States and South Korea seemingly fails. Third, what kind of changes the United States and South Korea need to have. This article argues, South Korea needs to acquire and develop its own nuclear weapons, and the United States needs to perform military retrenchment by retracting United States Forces Korea from the Peninsula. To examine the argument, neorealist theory, Waltz’s proposition on the further spread of nuclear weapons, and theory of military retrenchment, all provide necessary framework.Keywords: Korean Peninsula crisis, nuclear ROK, US military retrenchment, neorealist theory

Author(s):  
Patrick McEachern

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.


2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jong-Han Yoon

In this study, I examine the effect of US foreign policy on the relationship between South Korea and North Korea. In particular, I analyze whether two different foreign policy approaches—the hard-line approach and the soft-line approach—have played a role in advancing or slowing steps toward peace in the Korean peninsula. I use the Integrated Data for Events Analysis dataset for the period 1990–2004. By employing a Vector Autoregression model, which analyzes the behavioral patterns of South and North Korea and the United States, I find that US foreign policy affects the relationship between the two Koreas by affecting North Korea's behavior toward South Korea. The triangular relationship among the United States, North Korea, and South Korea shows a reciprocal behavior pattern. This finding suggests that a soft-line and reciprocal US foreign policy toward North Korea is critical to maintaining peace in the Korean peninsula.


2015 ◽  
Vol 01 (02) ◽  
pp. 223-246
Author(s):  
Gi-Wook Shin ◽  
David Straub

Distrust between the United States and China continues to grow in Northeast Asia. Among many contributing factors, the North Korea issue is one of the most important, as illustrated by the controversy over the possible deployment of the United States' THAAD missile defense system in South Korea. Thus, resolving or mitigating the Korea problem, a significant goal in its own right to both the United States and China, is also essential to reducing U.S.-PRC strategic distrust. China and the United States share long-term interests vis-à-vis the Korean peninsula. The question is how its resolution might be achieved. U.S. efforts to induce North Korea to abandon its nuclear and missile programs by offering incentives and imposing sanctions have failed, and Chinese attempts to encourage Pyongyang to adopt PRC-style economic reforms have not fared much better. With Washington, Beijing, and Pyongyang unlikely to change their approaches, the hope for any new initiative must rest with Seoul. South Korea's special relationships with the North, the United States, and the PRC, along with its status as a dynamic middle power, give it the potential to play a larger leadership role in dealing with North Korea. In doing so, South Korea should consult with the United States and China on a long-term strategy for inter-Korean reconciliation that would, for now, finesse the nuclear issue. Such a strategy would require U.S. and Chinese support of the South Korean leadership in addressing the Korea problem. The process of working together with Seoul to formulate and implement this strategy would allow both powers to ensure that their long-term interests on the peninsula are respected. Although there is no guarantee that such an effort will succeed, the worsening situation on and around the Korean peninsula and the U.S. and PRC's lack of progress all argue for this new approach, as do the potential benefits to the U.S.-PRC relationship.


Subject South Korea's international relationships. Significance South Korea’s government is celebrating the success of its response to COVID-19, but the country’s four key foreign relationships all face difficulties -- those with the United States, China, Japan and North Korea. No other countries or regions are vital to Seoul, despite vaunted ‘Southern’ and ‘Northern’ initiatives. Impacts A prolonged deadlock on funding the US military presence in South Korea could push Seoul closer to Beijing. If President Xi Jinping visits South Korea later this year, Washington could easily misread this. Substantial fence-mending with Japan may have to await new leaderships in both countries. South Korean President Moon Jae-in may have tacitly given up on North Korea, which has visibly given up on him.


2007 ◽  
Vol 42 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 297-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tsuneo Akaha

North Korea became an urgent problem for Japan as a result of the 1994 nuclear crisis in North Korea, the 1998 missile launch over Japan and the 2003—4 nuclear crisis. At the historic Tokyo—Pyongyang summit in September 2002, both sides acknowledged the need to solve the security issues surrounding the Korean Peninsula through peaceful, multilateral efforts. However, the issue of North Korean abduction of Japanese citizens in earlier decades intensified Japanese sentiment against the North and this issue halted bilateral normalization talks. Japan has participated in six-party talks on the nuclear issue since 2004, but its distinct bilateral interests vis-à-vis North Korea, South Korea and the United States limit its influence in the multiparty engagement.


Author(s):  
A. Fenenko

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.


2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 84-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oriana Skylar Mastro

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.


2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 300-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jong Hee Park ◽  
Kentaro Hirose

The argument that reputational concerns promote compliance is at the center of the literature of international cooperation. In this paper, we study how reputational sanctions affect compliance when domestic parties carry their own reputations in international negotiations. We showed that the prospect of international cooperation varies a lot depending on who sits at the negotiation table, how partisan preferences for compliance are different, and how much international audiences discriminate between different types of noncompliance. We illustrate implications of our model using episodes from the negotiations between the United States and North Korea over North Korea's nuclear weapons program.


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