In June 1994 the United States went to the brink of war with North Korea. With economic sanctions impending, President Bill Clinton approved the dispatch of substantial reinforcements to Korea, and plans were prepared for attacking the North's nuclear weapons complex. The turning point came in an extraordinary private diplomatic initiative by former President Jimmy Carter and others to reverse the dangerous American course and open the way to a diplomatic settlement of the nuclear crisis. Few Americans know the full details behind this story or perhaps realize the devastating impact it could have had on the nation's post-Cold War foreign policy. In this lively and authoritative book, Leon Sigal offers an inside look at how the Korean nuclear crisis originated, escalated, and was ultimately defused. He begins by exploring a web of intelligence failures by the United States and intransigence within South Korea and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Sigal pays particular attention to an American mindset that prefers coercion to cooperation in dealing with aggressive nations. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with policymakers from the countries involved, he discloses the details of the buildup to confrontation, American refusal to engage in diplomatic give-and-take, the Carter mission, and the diplomatic deal of October 1994. In the post-Cold War era, the United States is less willing and able than before to expend unlimited resources abroad; as a result it will need to act less unilaterally and more in concert with other nations. What will become of an American foreign policy that prefers coercion when conciliation is more likely to serve its national interests? Using the events that nearly led the United States into a second Korean War, Sigal explores the need for policy change when it comes to addressing the challenge of nuclear proliferation and avoiding conflict with nations like Russia, Iran, and Iraq. What the Cuban missile crisis was to fifty years of superpower conflict, the North Korean nuclear crisis is to the coming era.

This book offers a broader theory of nuclear deterrence and examines the way nuclear and conventional deterrence interact with non-military factors in a series of historical case studies. The existing body of literature largely leans toward the analytical primacy of nuclear deterrence and it is often implicitly assumed that nuclear weapons are so important that, when they are present, other factors need not be studied. This book addresses this omission. It develops a research framework that incorporates the military aspects of deterrence, both nuclear and conventional, together with various perceptual factors, international circumstances, domestic politics, and norms. This framework is then used to re-examine five historical crises that brought two nuclear countries to the brink of war: the hostile asymmetric nuclear relations between the United States and China in the early 1960s; between the Soviet Union and China in the late 1960s; between Israel and Iraq in 1977–1981; between the United States and North Korea in 1992–1994; and, finally, between the United States and the Soviet Union during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. The main empirical findings challenge the common expectation that the threat of nuclear retaliation represents the ultimate deterrent. In fact, it can be said, with a high degree of confidence, that it was rather the threat of conventional retaliation that acted as a major stabilizer. This book will be of much interest to students of nuclear proliferation, cold war studies, deterrence theory, security studies and IR in general.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) joined the rank of nuclear powers in October 2006 after exploding its first nuclear device. The test was not fully successful yet it unequivocally demonstrated North Korea's nuclear weapons capability. North Korea under the leadership of Kim Jong-il remains as unpredictable and mysterious as ever. This comprehensive study brings together leading scholars in the field to examine the country's current foreign policy under Kim Jong-il as well as its bilateral relations with the USA, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea.

Why does the Japanese government often alter its course of action under pressure from the United States, even when doing so apparently undermines Japan's own interests? Japan's marked responsiveness to U.S. preferences regarding foreign aid policy appears counterintuitive, since Japan's demonstrated capability to donate funds rivals and has previously surpassed that of the U.S. In Limits to Power, Akitoshi Miyashita posits that Japan's deference to the will of the U.S. results from Japan's continuing role as the more dependent partner in the two countries' interdependent diplomatic and economic relationship. Miyashita critically reviews the existing literature on Japanese foreign aid, then tests his own argument against five case studies. After analyzing critical junctures in Japan's history of foreign aid to China, Vietnam, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, he concludes that Japan's consistent sway under U.S. opinion reflects an act of will on Japan's part, rather than a lack of coherent policy stemming from bureaucratic politics. Limits to Power boldly challenges current arguments that Japan has successfully distanced itself from "reactive" politics.

This book examines the interplay between sanctions and nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. The volume aims to tackle three separate but closely intertwined issues: It aims to revisit the debate on, and deconstruct the concept of, sanctions; to provide a working theoretical framework; to differentiate between positive sanctions (or incentives or carrots) and negative sanctions; to identify the actors who may initiate sanctions (i.e. states, regional, and/or international organizations); to ascertain the legality and legitimacy of such sanctions taking place; to problematize and discuss the utility of sanctions; and so on. It aims to disentangle the concepts of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, particularly in light of the most recent geopolitical global shifts on nuclear powers-interplay taking place in the background of the war in Ukraine and rising tensions in Southeast Asia, and so on. Finally, it aims to conjoin the cause-and-effect cases between the application of sanctions, on the one hand, and the decision by states to pursue nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, on the other. By doing so, the volume helps to update and stimulate the academic and policy debate on the inter-relation between sanctions and nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. This book will be of much interest to students of nuclear non-proliferation, economic sanctions, security studies, and International Relations.

Contemporary, thoughtful and extensively illustrated, Modern Diplomacy examines a broad range of current diplomatic practice. This leading and widely used book - now in its fifth edition - equips students with a detailed analysis of important international issues that reflect and impact upon diplomacy and its relations. The subject is brought to life through case studies and examples which highlight the working of contemporary diplomacy within the international political arena. Organised around five broad topic areas, including the nature of diplomacy, diplomatic methods, negotiation, the operation of diplomacy in specific areas and international conflict, the book covers all major topic areas of contemporary diplomacy. New features for this edition: Developments in diplomatic practice Strategies in diplomacy International trade, geopolitics and agreements Diplomacy of new regional organisations and groupings Developing country diplomacy Non-traditional diplomacy New concepts – parallel and counter diplomacy New case studies include: the Paris Climate Agreement, Brexit, international finance and trade agreements, and the UN security forces. Modern Diplomacy is essential reading for students and practitioners of international relations, foreign policy, international law, international political economy, international economics, the Foreign Services Institutes and the National Diplomatic Academies.

"Historical Dictionary of Arms Control and Disarmament also provides information that is comprehensible to all readers. Jeffrey A. Larsen and James M. Smith present a context for the broader range of international relations at a given point in time, extending the utility of the dictionary beyond just a narrow examination of arms control."--BOOK JACKET.