In The News

North Korea Admits Nuclear Arsenal

November 17, 2002
orth Korea’s disguise of its nuclear capabilities has always served as the rogue state’s only playing card in negotiations with the US. Today, the state publicized its possession of “powerful military counter-measures, including nuclear weapons" for the first time, possibly in reaction to the recent conditional halt of fuel aid by the US, South Korea, the European Union, and Japan. Pyongyang...

The Greatest Threat

Nicholas D. Kristof October 29, 2002
In the fire-breathing style that has become the hallmark of North Korean propaganda, an unofficial spokesman of the country threatened retaliatory attack on the US mainland if Washington decided to hit its nuclear reactor. Not that the US is planning to do that but the danger is that an effective annulment of the 1994 agreement by stopping the supply of fuel oil to North Korea may set in...

N. Korea: China echoes U.S. concerns

P. S. Suryanarayana October 23, 2002
China is North Korea's close neighbor and strongest ally in Asia. But the Chinese government joins the US and others in wanting to keep the Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons. As Jiang Zemin prepares for a US trip, Beijing is advocating diplomacy and dialog between North Korea and the US. - YaleGlobal

White House Cool to North Korean Offer of Talks

Reuters October 21, 2002
Although the US sent a new shipment of fuel oil to North Korea two days after the latter admitted having a secret nuclear weapons program, the White House says it won’t "reward bad behavior." Unnamed Bush administration officials implied that the 1994 accord with North Korea agreed to give North Korea nuclear reactors and fuel oil in exchange for shutting down weapons-related...

Seoul Criticized for Sweeping Information on North Korean Nukes under Carpet

Hwang Jang-jin October 21, 2002
The North Korean revelation about its secret weapons program has emerged as a hot new issue in the South Korean election campaign. The fact that the South Korean government was informed by the US of North Korea’s secret program in August but it kept quiet about it is being used to blast the government of president Kim Dae Jung, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his reconciliation effort vis-à-...

North Korea's Latest Nuclear Gambit

Andrew Mack October 21, 2002
This essay focuses on the consequences and future implications of relations between North Korea and the United States given the North Korea's surprise admission of a clandestine nuclear weapons program via enriched uranium. It argues that the United States is in a lose-lose foreign policy situation due to potential accusations of hypocrisy (vis a vis its foreign policy with Iraq) and...

A New Front, but It's Still One War

David E. Sanger October 20, 2002
The revelation of a nuclear weapons program in North Korea will test the Bush administration's ability to manage foreign policy and a multi-front war on terrorism. Former ambassador to Korea Stephen Bosworth says he's concerned "about the overload on the intelligence side, human and the technological." The doctrine of pre-emptive defense, outlined recently in the new US...