China, Japan, Russia, and South Korea have struggled to navigate between the unsettling belligerence of North Korea and the often unilateral insistence of the United States on how to proceed. This book focuses on their strategic thinking and internal debates over four stages of the crisis.

China, Japan, Russia, and South Korea have struggled to navigate between the unsettling belligerence of North Korea and the often unilateral insistence of the United States on how to proceed. This book focuses on their strategic thinking and internal debates over four stages of the crisis.

Victor D. Cha and David C. Kang’s Nuclear North Korea was first published in 2003 amid the outbreak of a lasting crisis over the North Korean nuclear program. It promptly became a landmark of an ongoing debate in academic and policy circles about whether to engage or contain North Korea. Fifteen years later, as North Korea tests intercontinental ballistic missiles and the U.S. president angrily refers to Kim Jong-un as “Rocket Man,” Nuclear North Korea remains an essential guide to the difficult choices we face. Coming from different perspectives—Kang believes the threat posed by Pyongyang has been inflated and endorses a more open approach, while Cha is more skeptical and advocates harsher measures, though both believe that some form of engagement is necessary—the authors together present authoritative analysis of one of the world’s thorniest challenges. They refute a number of misconceptions and challenge the faulty thinking that surrounds the discussion of North Korea, particularly the idea that North Korea is an irrational actor. Cha and Kang look at the implications of a nuclear North Korea, assess recent and current approaches to sanctions and engagement, and provide a functional framework for constructive policy. With a new chapter on the way forward for the international community in light of continued nuclear tensions, this book is of lasting relevance to understanding the state of affairs on the Korean peninsula.

This study makes northeast Asia the focus of analysis on how the nuclear crisis in 2002-2006 affected strategic thinking. While all those in the Six-Party Talks are included, the author explores in particular debates about the standoff in four countries on the front lines (South Korea, China, Japan, and Russia).

Annotation In this book, three former U.S. officials who played key roles in the 1994 North Korean nuclear crisis trace the intense efforts that led North Korea to freezeand pledge ultimately to dismantleits dangerous plutonium production program. The story of the 1994 crisis provides important lessons for the U.S. as it grapples once again with a nuclear crisis on a peninsula that half a century ago claimed 50,000 American lives.

North Korea is perilously close to developing strategic nuclear weapons capable of hitting the United States and its East Asian allies. Since their first nuclear test in 2006, North Korea has struggled to perfect the required delivery systems. Kim Jong-un’s regime now appears to be close, however. Sung Chull Kim, Michael D. Cohen, and the volume contributors contend that the time to prevent North Korea from achieving this capability is virtually over; scholars and policymakers must turn their attention to how to deter a nuclear North Korea. The United States, South Korea, and Japan must also come to terms with the fact that North Korea will be able to deter them with its nuclear arsenal. How will the erratic Kim Jong-un behave when North Korea develops the capability to hit medium- and long-range targets with nuclear weapons? How will and should the United States, South Korea, Japan, and China respond, and what will this mean for regional stability in the short term and long term? The international group of authors in this volume address these questions and offer a timely analysis of the consequences of an operational North Korean nuclear capability for international security.