North Korea Us Relations

How has North Korea sought to normalize diplomatic relations with the US? Explaining the continuities between the Kim Jong-un and Kim Jong-il governments, as well as the discontinuities, especially the decisive move towards brinkmanship under Kim Jong-un culminating in 2017, this book shows how North Korea has constantly learnt from its own experience and the experience of others to evolve and adapt its policy towards the US. This fully revised and expanded second edition draws on interviews and conversations with American, North and South Korean, Chinese and other countries’ policy-makers and experts and North Korean official media stories. It has been updated to include discussion of the post-2012 period when Kim Jong-un replaced his father to become the leader of North Korea, and provides detailed analysis of both presidencies, concluding with a study of the two bilateral summits held with President Donald Trump. Showing how weaker powers can try to achieve their main foreign policy goals with respect to great powers, this book will be of interest to scholars and students of the international relations of East Asia, US Foreign Policy, Korean Studies and Foreign Policy Analysis. It should also prove relevant to those studying international bargaining and negotiation.

The Korean peninsula remains one of the world's most dangerous places. While North Korea has an army of 1.2 million troops and holds Seoul hostage with its missiles and artillery, Pyongyang is in desperate straits after a decade of economic decline, food shortages, and diplomatic isolation. In 1998, former U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry traveled to Pyongyang to propose increasing outside aid from the United States, South Korea, and Japan in exchange for North Korea's promise to reduce military provocations. The third in a series of influential Task Force reports on Korea policy, this study argues that, in spite of tensions, the United States should continue to support South Korea's engagement policy and keep Perry's proposal on the table. The Task Force recommends that, should North Korea increase tensions by testing long-range missiles, the United States and its allies should take a new approach to Pyongyang, including enhancing U.S.-Japan and South Korean deterrence against other North Korean threats, suspending new South Korean investment in North Korea, and placing new Japanese restrictions on financial transfers to the North. By suggesting the possibility of gradually reducing the danger on the Korean peninsula, this report represents a crucial addition to the discussion of U.S.-North Korean economic relations.

North Korea has presented one of the most vexing and persistent problems in U.S. foreign policy in the post-Cold War period. The United States has never had formal diplomatic relations with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (the official name for North Korea), although contact at a lower level has ebbed and flowed over the years. Negotiations over North Korea's nuclear weapons program have occupied the past three U.S. administrations, even as some analysts anticipated a collapse of the isolated authoritarian regime. North Korea has been the recipient of over $1 billion in U.S. aid (though none since 2009) and the target of dozens of U.S. sanctions.

North Korea has been among the most vexing and persistent problems in U.S. foreign policy in the post-Cold War period. The United States has never had formal diplomatic relations with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (the official name for North Korea). Negotiations over North Korea's nuclear weapons program have occupied the past three U.S. administrations, even as some analysts anticipated a collapse of the isolated authoritarian regime. North Korea has been the recipient of well over $1 billion in U.S. aid and the target of dozens of U.S. sanctions. This book provides background information on the negotiations over North Korea's nuclear weapons program that began in the early 1990s under the Clinton Administration. It discusses other military and security developments involving North Korea. This book also includes information from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea 2013 human rights report, and the 2012 international religious freedom report.

This book analyses North Korea’s foreign policy towards the United States during the Kim Jong Il era. Throughout these years, North Korea sought but failed to normalise diplomatic relations with the United States. Making use of theories of bargaining and learning in International Relations, the book explains how the inability of the Kim Jong Il government to correctly understand domestic politics in Washington and developments in East Asian international relations contributed to this failure. As a result, Pyongyang accelerated development of nuclear weapons programme with the aim of strengthening its negotiating position with the US. However, towards the end of the Kim Jong Il government it became unclear whether North Korea is willing to reverse its nuclear programme in exchange for normal diplomatic relations with the United States. The book includes material from over 60 interviews with American, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Russian policy-makers and experts who have dealt with North Korea. It also analyses in detail Pyongyang’s official media articles published during the Kim Jong Il era. This work will be of great interest to students and scholars of US Foreign Policy, Korean Politics and International Relations alike.

The Korean peninsula, divided for more than fifty years, is stuck in a time warp. Millions of troops face one another along the Demilitarized Zone separating communist North Korea and capitalist South Korea. In the early 1990s and again in 2002-2003, the United States and its allies have gone to the brink of war with North Korea. Misinterpretations and misunderstandings are fueling the crisis. "There is no country of comparable significance concerning which so many people are ignorant," American anthropologist Cornelius Osgood said of Korea some time ago. This ignorance may soon have fatal consequences. North Korea, South Korea is a short, accessible book about the history and political complexites of the Korean peninsula, one that explores practical alternatives to the current US policy: alternatives that build on the remarkable and historic path of reconciliation that North and South embarked on in the 1990s and that point the way to eventual reunification.

North Korea has been among the most vexing and persistent problems in U.S. foreign policy in the post-Cold War period. The United States has never had formal diplomatic relations with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (the official name for North Korea). Negotiations over North Korea's nuclear weapons program have consumed the past three U.S. administrations, even as some analysts anticipated a collapse of the isolated authoritarian regime. North Korea has been the recipient of well over $1 billion in U.S. aid and the target of dozens of U.S. sanctions. This report provides background information on the negotiations over North Korea's nuclear weapons program that began in the early 1990s under the Clinton Administration. As U.S. policy toward Pyongyang evolved through the George W. Bush presidency and into the Obama Administration, the negotiations moved from mostly bilateral to the multilateral Six-Party Talks (made up of China, Japan, Russia, North Korea, South Korea, and the United States). Although the negotiations have reached some key agreements that lay out deals for aid and recognition to North Korea in exchange for denuclearization, major problems with implementation have persisted. With talks suspended since 2009, concern about proliferation to other actors has grown. After Kim Jong-il's sudden death in December 2011, the reclusive regime now faces the challenge of transferring dynastic power to his youngest son, Kim Jong-un. Pyongyang had shown signs of reaching out in 2011 after a string of provocative acts in 2010, including an alleged torpedo attack on a South Korean warship that killed 46 South Korean servicemen and an artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island that killed two South Korean Marines and two civilians. When Kim passed, the United States was reportedly on the verge of announcing an agreement on food aid and Pyongyang had indicated a willingness to freeze some parts of its nuclear program. The Obama Administration, like its predecessors, faces fundamental decisions on how to approach North Korea. To what degree should the United States attempt to isolate the regime diplomatically and financially? Should those efforts be balanced with engagement initiatives that continue to push for steps toward denuclearization, or for better human rights behavior? Should the United States adjust its approach in the post-Kim Jong-il era? Is China a reliable partner in efforts to pressure Pyongyang? Have the North's nuclear tests and alleged torpedo attack demonstrated that regime change is the only way to peaceful resolution? How should the United States consider its alliance relationships with Japan and South Korea as it formulates its North Korea policy? Should the United States continue to offer humanitarian aid? Although the primary focus of U.S. policy toward North Korea is the nuclear weapons program, there are a host of other issues, including Pyongyang's missile program, illicit activities, and poor human rights record. Modest attempts at engaging North Korea, including joint operations to recover U.S. servicemen's remains from the Korean War and some discussion about opening a U.S. liaison office in Pyongyang, remain suspended along with the nuclear negotiations.