North Korea and Regional Security in the Kim Jong-un Era


Book Description

This study is one of the very first to analyze North Korea and the challenges that it presents to international security and community, by looking through the prism of the first two years of the Kim Jong-un regime.




North Korean Nuclear Operationality


Book Description

"Leading Asian and security studies experts consider the question: What would happen if North Korea "goes nuclear?" and their answers are critical. Scholars and policymakers alike need to understand the implications not only for northeast Asian regional security, but also for the international nuclear non-proliferation regime. Moore's contributors evaluate political, economic, and security issues including: how South Korea, China, Japan, and Russia would react to such an event, and the possibility of a regional arms race; what diplomatic and strategic options the U.S. has; and how the global community's expectations regarding nuclear non-proliferation would be effected. Given the instability and mystery surrounding North Korean politics, scholarship on the implications of the country's nuclear capability is critical, which makes this volume with its unique focus a timely addition to the East Asian security studies field"--




North Korea and Northeast Asian Regional Security


Book Description

With its unstable and intermittent nuclear weapon project, and the recent leadership succession issue, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has been a source of insecurity for the past decade in this region, in addition to the delicate international relations among the powerful China, United States, Japan, and Russia. The essence of DPRK issue lies in the instability and uncertainty of nuclear development that even the slightest miscalculation by any one power could disturb the sensitive balance of relationships, creating a butterfly effect with a catastrophic result. Drawing on various perspectives on the interaction over DPRK and other regional powers, this volume seeks to explore the role of DPRK in Northeast Asia, and its implication to regional security as a whole. The volume does not confirm a particular position over DPRK’s nuclear showdown; rather it invites scholars to provide assessments from the viewpoints of neighbouring powers in order to present a more complete understanding of the leading issue in Northeast Asia. The volume will serve as an invaluable resource for policymakers, students and scholars of North Korean politics and international relations. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Comparative Asian Development.




Burma's North Korean Gambit


Book Description




Confronting Security Challenges on the Korean Peninsula


Book Description

The Korean Peninsula was and is in a state of flux.More than 60 years after the war that left the country divided, the policies and unpredictability of the North Korean regime, in conjunction with the U.S. alliance with South Korea and the involvement of China in the area, leave the situation there one of the most capricious on the globe. Confronting Security Challenges on the Korean Peninsula presents the opinions from experts on the subject matter from the policy, military, and academic communities. Drawn from talks at a conference in September 2010 at Marine Corps University, the papers explore the enduring security challenges, the state of existing political and military relationships, the economic implications of unification, and the human rights concerns within North and South Korea. They also reiterate the importance for the broader East Asia region of peaceful resolution of the Korean issues.




Korean Security in a Changing East Asia


Book Description

Since its partition in the 1950s, the Korean peninsula has directly or indirectly shaped the broader security relations between regional powerhouses, and the recent test of a nuclear weapon by the North Korean regime has heightened tensions across the world. This study draws upon contributions from a diverse array of experts who offer their perspectives on the region's complex network of alliances and hostilities. The authors discuss the future of the region, the potential for military conflict and a new arms race, and the ways to maintain peace and stability. Since its partition in the 1950s, the Korean peninsula has directly or indirectly shaped the broader security relations between regional powerhouses, while the recent test of a nuclear weapon by the North Korean regime has heightened tensions across the world. Japan, feeling increasingly threatened by the North Korean regime and China's extravagant military expenditures, has begun questioning Article IX in its Constitution that renounces war and the maintenance of armed forces. Its neighbors, still haunted by Japanese atrocities during World War II, are fearful of a new nuclear arms race in the region. The United States, for its part, has adopted unprecedented hard-line policies in response to 9/11, going so far as to condemn North Korea as part of an axis of evil. It has strengthened its alliance with Japan and alienated its long-time strategic partner South Korea. Add to this the economic entanglements of each of these countries both with each other and with the rest of the world, and the regional security issues become even more paramount. This study makes sense of these complex alliances and frictions and offers an array of perspectives on the future of the region, the potential for military conflict and a new arms race, and the ways to maintain peace and stability. Topics include big power rivalries, South Korea's sunshine policy, anti-Americanism, and emerging nationalisms.







Double Trouble


Book Description

North Korea possesses nuclear weapons, while Iran is poised to acquire them in the next decade. How the United States and other nations seek to roll back these burgeoning nuclear powers is among the most urgent issues of the day. At stake is regional security in the Persian Gulf and Northeast Asia, America's standing abroad, and prospects for nuclear non-proliferation. This book offers complementary international perspectives on these threats and the peaceful responses to grapple with the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs. Leading authorities provide balanced analyses—together with new chronologies and maps—that make the volume an invaluable reference for all those interested in understanding options available in dealing with Iran and North Korea. The contributors to this volume offer complementary international perspectives on the critical security issues that stem from the challenges posed by Iran and North Korea. No other work combines the analysis of the two countries and explores the threat posed by each to regional stability and world order. The book examines how and why attempts to curb the nuclear programs and broader political ambitions of each nation have failed. It also examines how each nation, in its own way, has managed to defy the world's preponderant power, the United States, as well as other major powers and the United Nations. And it offers analysis on where the fractured and oscillating relations with these two nettlesome actors are heading and the long-term implications of their current trajectories for nuclear proliferation, deterrence, alliance management, regional security, and world order.




North Korea and Security Cooperation in Northeast Asia


Book Description

Relations between the two Koreas continue to be hostile, volatile and unpredictable with North Korea’s nuclear issue remaining as untamed as ever. As such, there is a growing urgency for security cooperation in Northeast Asia to be given immediate attention. The key players in the region - the US, China, Japan and Russia - are keenly aware of the security threat of an armed clash between North and South Korea and are committed to denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. This book explores the domestic factors of the two Koreas and the four major powers that influence their security policies towards North Korea and Northeast Asia. This well thought out and consistently analysed volume has huge potential to frame the conversation on Northeast Asian relations in the coming years.




North Korean Military Proliferation in the Middle East and Africa


Book Description

North Korea has posed a threat to stability in Northeast Asia for decades. Since Kim Jong-un assumed power, this threat has both increased and broadened. Since 2011, the small, isolated nation has detonated nuclear weapons multiple times, tested a wide variety of ballistic missiles, expanded naval and ground systems that threaten South Korea, and routinely employs hostile rhetoric. Another threat it poses has been less recognized: North Korea presents a potentially greater risk to American interests by exporting its weapons systems to other volatile regions worldwide. In North Korean Military Proliferation in the Middle East and Africa, Bruce E. Bechtol Jr. analyzes relevant North Korean military capabilities, what arms the nation provides, and to whom, how it skirts its sanctions, and how North Korea's activities can best be contained. He traces illicit networks that lead to state and nonstate actors in the Middle East, including Syria, Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas, and throughout Africa, including at least a dozen nations. The potential proliferation of nuclear and chemical weapons technology and the vehicles that carry it, including ballistic missiles and artillery, represent a broader threat than the leadership in Pyongyang. Including training and infrastructure support, North Korea's profits may range into the billions of dollars, all concealed in illicit networks and front companies so complex that the nation struggles to track and control them. Bechtol not only presents an accurate picture of the current North Korean threat -- he also outlines methodologies that Washington and the international community must embrace in order to contain it.