NSPR19 North Korean Nuclear Crisis and Korean Peninsula Peace: Diagnosis and Prescription

Overview

The Institute for East Asian Studies (EAI) publishes the National Security Panel Report Series, which provides in-depth analysis of major foreign policy and security issues and presents realistic policy alternatives through the National Security Panel, composed of domestic and international foreign policy and security experts (chaired by EAI Director Ha Young-sun).

This 19th NSP report is the sixth report in the series titled "North Korean Nuclear Crisis and Korean Peninsula Peace," based on the National Security Panel's seven-month in-depth study from the Six-Party Talks on September 6, 2005, examining the relationship between North Korea's nuclear abandonment, coercive diplomacy, economic aid, normalization of relations, North Korean human rights, and a peace regime. Ha Young-sun, a member of the NSP and professor of diplomacy at Seoul National University, served as the lead author.

This report argues that to peacefully resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis, the sanctions phase of the past 1 year and 2 months must not be repeated. To achieve this, a new prescription for peace must be developed after tracing the trajectory that led the North Korean nuclear issue to its current crisis over the past year.

"To successfully escape the North Korean nuclear crisis, we must find a fourth way. This new path is not one that defends the leader's regime through military-first politics, which regards nuclear weapons as the ultimate safeguard, but rather one that defends the North Korean people through the pursuit of reform and opening policies based on denuclearization." (From the text)

Author

Ha Young-sun, Department of Diplomacy, Seoul National University