Hope springs eternal that the Bush administration, in its new post-election configuration, will finally get serious about the North Korean nuclear crisis. According to the most optimistic assessment, the new appointments at the State Department–Condoleezza Rice, Robert Zoellick, Christopher Hill–will leaven the administration’s hard-line policy with a measure of pragmatism. This more realistic diplomacy will… Continue reading Round Two of Bush vs. North Korea
On September 19, North Korea agreed to give up its nuclear program. As part of the same agreement, which followed the latest round of the Six Party Talks, the United States pledged not to attack or invade North Korea, to coexist peacefully with the country, and to work toward normalized relations. The United States and… Continue reading Uses of Ambiguity in North Korea Agreement
The South Korean farmer snaps a cucumber in two to show me the drops of moisture that bead to the surface around the break. “If you put it back together and wait a minute, then it will stick together,” Yang Yoon Seok says. Sure enough, he easily rejoins the severed halves and the cucumber is… Continue reading The Legacy of Lee Kyung Hae
Those crazy North Koreans. They’ve promised in principle to give up their nuclear weapons, but they insist on generating nuclear power for peaceful purposes. With Pyongyang and Washington at loggerheads over this point, the Six-Party Talks to resolve the nuclear crisis in Northeast Asia have taken a recess after two weeks of promising discussions. U.S.… Continue reading Atoms for Peace
Somenthing extraordinary is happening in Korea, and Washington appears to be paying no attention. The two Koreas have plunged headlong in to unknown territory: reunification. For 50 years, aside from the occasional defector, it was impossible to cross the demilitarized zone dividing the Korean Peninsula. Today a bus leaves the capital of South Korea every… Continue reading Korea’s Slow-Motion Reunification
North Korea’s public declaration of nuclear status does not definitively prove that it possesses nuclear weapons. What’s clear is that Pyongyang expects no changes in Bush administration policy. The announcement and North Korea’s decision to stop participating in the international negotiations with the United States and its neighbors known as “six-party talks” was designed to… Continue reading Dealing with the Powers in Pyongyang
It happened nearly 25 years ago, but the old woman’s grief was still raw. We were queued up to lay flowers on the ceremonial table with its pyramids of fruit and platters of pounded rice cake. At the head of the line was a group of victims’ mothers, clad in white. Each lay a single… Continue reading The Spirit of Kwangju
There is no Vaclav Havel of North Korea. Don’t expect to turn up a Solidarity-like trade union or a Democracy Wall movement on your next visit to Pyongyang. Nor, as far as anyone can tell, is a North Korean version of Boris Yeltsin or even Mikhail Gorbachev waiting in the wings to shake up the… Continue reading Next Stop: Pyongyang
You can lead two parties to a negotiating table, but you can’t make them compromise. As the United States and North Korea head into six-party negotiations this week, both countries find themselves boxed into a diplomatic corner. These hardening positions make a robust agreement unlikely even though such a deal is in the long-term… Continue reading U.S. must abandon hard-line stance in talks with North Korea
Gulliver and the Lilliputians Superpowers don’t like multilateralism. They fear that smaller countries will gang up to tie their hands, as the tiny Lilliputians bound mighty Gulliver in the famous novel. In the last four years, the U.S. Gulliver has defied the Lilliputians and projected an unprecedented amount of unilateral power – military,… Continue reading Gulliver and the Lilliputians
FPIF, October 24, 2004
FPIF, June 21, 2004
FPIF, April 30, 2004
FPIF, February 27, 2004
World Policy Journal, Fall 2004
American Prospect, February 14, 2004 The Bush administration has been at times dangerously ambiguous in its policy toward North Korea. With a second round of six-party talks likely for early 2004 and North Korea’s nuclear program chugging along, the upcoming debate on Capitol Hill over a new bill, the North Korea Freedom Act, may well… Continue reading Second Act
Review of Kim Il Sung and Korea’s Struggle by Won Tai Sohn John Feffer A casual observer of the United States in the 1950s might conclude that Dwight D. Eisenhower was a genial war hero who, as the 34th president, presided over a decade of unprecedented prosperity. Even my father, a World War II… Continue reading Kim Il Sung and Korea’s Struggle
Review of Charles Armstrong, The North Korean Revolution, 1945-1950 (Cornell University Press, 2003) Journalists almost ritualistically describe North Korea as the world’s last Stalinist hold out. “Stalinist,” like “communist” or “totalitarian,” is used more for its damning than its descriptive power. Indeed, in the same breath, journalists acknowledge that North Korea remains a profound… Continue reading The North Korean Revolution 1945-1950 (Review)
Conflict-resolution professionals often say that to break a deadlock requires parties to shift from “positions” to “interests.” For the past year, the United States and North Korea have repeated their positions ad nauseum. The United States wants North Korea to give up its nuclear program; North Korea wants a guarantee that the United States won’t… Continue reading Wish List
For the last year, the Bush administration has spoken with a forked tongue on North Korean policy. The pragmatists in the Bush administration have wanted to negotiate a solution to the current nuclear stand-off. The hardliners have been eager for Korean War II. Now, according to Beltway gossip in Washington, the pragmatists have bested… Continue reading North Korea: A Different Kind of Regime Change
TomPaine, September 3, 2003
A Different Kind of Regime Change For the last year, the Bush administration has spoken with a forked tongue on North Korean policy. The pragmatists in the Bush administration have wanted to negotiate a solution to the current nuclear stand-off. The hardliners have been eager for Korean War II. Now, according to Beltway… Continue reading Regime Change in North Korea?
Albany Times-Union, April 3, 2003
Greensboro News and Record, July 27, 2003
The Progressive, October 2003
Vegetarian Times, August 2003
Washingtonian, April 2003
The tug of war between the hawks and doves over North Korea policy continues within the Bush administration. In the latest move, the administration has unveiled its new, flexible negotiating position with Pyongyang: a willingness to provide security guarantees. Examined more carefully, however, this new dovish position appears to have the wing prints of the… Continue reading Tug of War
It is a testament to the absurdly low expectations attached to the diplomatic abilities of both North Korea and the United States that pundits have avoided the obvious conclusion concerning the recently concluded Six-Party Talks in Beijing. They were a disaster. Here’s the rub, though: the hardliners in Washington got exactly what they wanted and… Continue reading Hexagonal Headache
War so far has not returned to the Korean peninsula. Negotiators from six countries–North and South Korea, China, Japan, Russia, and the United States–are about to sit down in Beijing to keep it that way. In a world dominated by military “solutions” to obdurate problems, even the muted vote for diplomacy represented by the upcoming… Continue reading Six Countries in Search of a Solution