In the past, foreign policy and security concerns have trumped any efforts to reform the North Korean economy. Today, the linkage between security and economic policies is being reconsidered as part of a larger debate in the North Korean leadership that has already transformed the country in fundamental ways. Despite renewed tensions with the United States, North Korea has begun to implement important economic reforms. Moreover, underneath the cover of the ever-present ‘military-first’ slogan in the controlled media, a debate is taking place between ‘reformers’ and ‘conservatives’ over whether Pyongyang’s bloated military industrial complex should be scaled back to help ensure the success of economic reform. Not only do these developments reflect strong political forces in the North Korean leadership that support reform, but they could also have profound implications for the future of Pyongyang’s national security policy. North Korea may decide that it will need a more favourable external security environment in order to secure greater access to international economic and financial assistance for its reform measures and, ultimately, downsizing its military. Pyongyang could launch a new policy of engagement that would include greater flexibility in the Beijing Six Party Talks. A second scenario is continued internal struggle over reform that could lead to an inability to act decisively on key security and foreign policy issues, including at the nuclear talks. Finally, progress in reform may, paradoxically, strengthen conservatives, leading to hopes in Pyongyang that it can improve the economy, while simultaneously maintaining a large powerful military. Whether Washington can do anything at this point to influence directly the emerging debate in Pyongyang is unclear, but a renewed policy of engagement on its part could enhance the chances of success for North Korean advocates of reform.
A decade before being proclaimed part of the "axis of evil," North Korea raised alarms in Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo as the pace of its clandestine nuclear weapons program mounted. When confronted by evidence of its deception in 1993, Pyongyang abruptly announced its intention to become the first nation ever to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, defying its earlier commitments to submit its nuclear activities to full international inspections. U.S. intelligence had revealed evidence of a robust plutonium production program. Unconstrained, North Korea's nuclear factory would soon be capable of building about thirty Nagasaki-sized nuclear weapons annually. The resulting arsenal would directly threaten the security of the United States and its allies, while tempting cash-starved North Korea to export its deadly wares to America's most bitter adversaries. In Go ing Critical, three former U.S. officials who played key roles in the nuclear crisis trace the intense efforts that led North Korea to freeze—and pledge ultimately to dismantle—its dangerous plutonium production program under international inspection, while the storm clouds of a second Korean War gathered. Drawing on international government documents, memoranda, cables, and notes, the authors chronicle the complex web of diplomacy--from Seoul, Tokyo, and Beijing to Geneva, Moscow, and Vienna and back again—that led to the negotiation of the 1994 Agreed Framework intended to resolve this nuclear standoff. They also explore the challenge of weaving together the military, economic, and diplomatic instruments employed to persuade North Korea to accept significant constraints on its nuclear activities, while deterring rather than provoking a violent North Korean response. Some ten years after these intense negotiations, the Agreed Framework lies abandoned. North Korea claims to possess some nuclear weapons, while threatening to produce even more. The story of the 1994 confrontatio
This Council Special Report ... focuses on how to manage one of the central unknowns: the prospect of a change in North Korea's leadership. The report examines three scenarios: managed succession, in which the top post transitions smoothly; contested succession, in which government officials or factions fight for power after Kim's demise; and failed succession, in which a new government cannot cement its legitimacy, possibly leading to North Korea's collapse.
Joel Polodny offers a sociological examination of how concerns about status affect market competition and shows how anxieties about status influence partner relations, price and perception in the marketplace.
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