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Begin New Search Topic Diplomacy Political Geography North Korea Content Type Special Report Publication Year within 5 Years

1. North Korea-Germany Relations: An Ambassador's Perspective of Diplomacy with Pyongyang

Author:
Armin Schäfer
Publication Date:
03-2023
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
Germany established diplomatic relations with North Korea, also known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), in 2001 at the request of the South Korean government, which hoped that Germany and the European Union (EU) would play a more active role in supporting the “Sunshine Policy.” Since then, Germany, together with the other EU states, has sought to moderate North Korea through a “Policy of Critical Engagement” to convince it of the benefits of international cooperation, respect for the rule of law, and improving the political and economic situation of its people. In doing so, Germany could build on the long relationship between North Korea and the former East Germany. “Critical engagement” means being willing to talk and get involved, but without holding back on criticism—and, if need be, imposing sanctions. It also implies that comprehensive engagement is not (yet) possible because of the circumstances. There is ample cause for a constrained approach from North Korea’s aggressive foreign policy and systematic human rights violations to the absence of suitable economic and fiscal conditions for business and development cooperation. Moreover, the lack of will on the part of considerable segments of the North Korean regime to engage with other countries also hampers broader engagement.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Economics, Education, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
Europe, Asia, North Korea, and Germany

2. Building a Flywheel: The Biden Administration's Opportunity to Forge a New Path with North Korea

Author:
John Park
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for a New American Security (CNAS)
Abstract:
As the United States seeks to maintain a level of stability in its increasingly competitive relationship with China, North Korea has the potential to complicate their intensifying rivalry. Dealing with North Korea is a complex endeavor that requires deft handling by both nations because the stakes are high and instability can spread rapidly. For decades, China has been seeking to bolster the stability of the Kim family regime and increase China’s economic engagement with North Korea, to the point where North Korea Inc.—the Kim regime’s network of elite state trading companies—has embedded itself in major commercial hubs throughout China. By prioritizing the stability of the North Korean regime over denuclearization in its policy actions, China created a loophole in which the North Korean regime could enjoy economic benefits without having to do denuclearization work. Beijing thus impeded the development of a connection to a larger process in which major denuclearization activity would be paired with major economic and diplomatic concessions. In contrast to China’s sustained engagement with North Korea, U.S. policy toward North Korea over the last decade has focused substantially on sanctions implementation. There was a brief period of summit diplomacy during the Trump administration, but those efforts failed to bring about progress toward denuclearization. The North Korean nuclear issue has mutated into a much more complex challenge that no longer fits into past policy molds that rely heavily on sanctions implementation. President Joe Biden’s administration will need to recognize that North Korea under Kim Jong Un has become highly resilient to U.S. policy tools such as sanctions, largely due to far-reaching advancements in the relationship between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) as well as the migration and embedding of North Korea Inc. deep inside the Chinese national economy.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Nuclear Weapons, Strategic Competition, Strategic Stability, and Joe Biden
Political Geography:
China, North Korea, and United States of America

3. North Korea's Foreign Policy Towards South Korea and the U.S.

Author:
Oskar Pietrewicz
Publication Date:
11-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Polish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
In recent months, North Korea has intensified missile tests, while signalling the possibility of resuming talks with South Korea and the U.S. These signals of openness to dialogue indicate that North Korea wants the next South Korean president, who will be elected in March 2022, to be favourable to the inter-Korean dialogue. In turn, the demonstration of military capabilities serves to strengthen North Korea’s position ahead of possible negotiations with the U.S. to convince it to ease sanctions. The difficult domestic situation will not persuade North Korea to take a more conciliatory stance in the talks, however.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Dialogue, and Military
Political Geography:
Asia, South Korea, North Korea, and United States of America

4. Fear and Insecurity: Addressing North Korean Threat Perceptions

Author:
Patrick M. Cronin
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Hudson Institute
Abstract:
Diplomacy with North Korea must factor in an understanding of the Kim regime’s fears and insecurity. Pyongyang’s military actions and negotiating gambits jeopardize the United States, South Korea, and other nations’ vital interests and policy goals. Accordingly, the study of North Korean threat perceptions—how Kim Jong-un thinks about the utility of force and about threats to his regime—is essential for averting strategic surprise and buttressing diplomacy. National security strategy should be systematic, a deliberate calculation about national capabilities to achieve crucial objectives. It should be infused with an understanding of other actors, both friend and foe. A coherent national security strategy begins with clear and realistic written objectives. If aims are vague, it will be difficult to concentrate resources and mobilize others around a common cause. Similarly, if a nation’s goals are too ambitious and surpass the prospects or means for success, then the national security strategy represents wishful thinking and will likewise be difficult to carry out. What is needed is a serious attempt to grapple with the world as it exists and to harmonize a nation’s crucial ends with existing means.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and National Security
Political Geography:
East Asia, Asia, South Korea, North Korea, and United States of America

5. Prospects for Diplomacy With North Korea

Author:
Tobias Harris, Haneul Lee, and Abigail Bard
Publication Date:
11-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for American Progress - CAP
Abstract:
Given political considerations in the United States and South Korea, a diplomatic approach with North Korea is likely unsustainable in the long term.
Topic:
Diplomacy, International Cooperation, Conflict, and Peace
Political Geography:
Asia, South Korea, North Korea, North America, and United States of America

6. Congressional Perspectives on U.S. Policy Toward North Korea and Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula

Author:
Kelsey Davenport and Julia Masterson
Publication Date:
08-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Arms Control Association
Abstract:
Addressing the threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear weapons is one of the most significant and complex challenges facing the United States. Developing, implementing, and sustaining a verifiable diplomatic process that reduces risk and rolls back Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program requires a whole of government approach, including constructive contributions from members of the U.S. Congress. While crafting and implementing such an approach will be the prerogative of the Executive Branch, the role that Congress can play in supporting or hindering such a process should not be overlooked. Congress has used an array of tools to put in place conditions for negotiations, express its support or opposition to administration policy, and implement coercive measures toward North Korea designed to punish Pyongyang for its violations of international law and stymie its weapons development efforts. Using survey data and in-depth interviews from the late months of 2020, this report provides insight into how Congress views the North Korean nuclear threat and U.S. approaches to engaging with Pyongyang. More clarity into Congressional views and attitudes may lead to more effective policymaking.
Topic:
Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, Diplomacy, Military Strategy, and Denuclearization
Political Geography:
Asia, South Korea, North Korea, North America, and United States of America

7. With Tensions Receding, Americans Lose Fear of North Korea

Author:
Karl Friedhoff
Publication Date:
02-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Chicago Council on Global Affairs
Abstract:
North Korea’s promise to deliver an end-of-year “Christmas gift” went unfulfilled amid signs that the United States wanted to continue diplomacy with the Kim regime. This has led to a continued lull in tensions between the two countries, although actual progress in negotiations remains elusive. With that lack of progress, President Donald Trump has reportedly told his advisers that he does not want another summit with Kim Jong Un before the US presidential election in November. In a survey conducted from January 10–12, 2020, the American public is now less concerned about the threat posed by North Korea, but little else has changed in terms of Americans’ policy preferences to deal with North Korea’s nuclear program. Majorities still oppose airstrikes against North Korea and support long-term military bases in South Korea.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Bilateral Relations, Public Opinion, and Donald Trump
Political Geography:
Asia, South Korea, North Korea, North America, and United States of America

8. How to Engage the Enemy: The Case for National Security Diplomacy with North Korea

Author:
Van Jackson
Publication Date:
09-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
To help U.S. policymakers better manage the myriad risks they face on the Korean Peninsula, this report assesses whether and how to pursue national security diplomacy with North Korea. This concept of engagement responds to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2020 regarding the benefits and risks for U.S. national security. Persistent engagement with North Korea’s national security elites, the report argues, is a policy wager with a large potential upside and very little cost and risk.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Migration, National Security, and Negotiation
Political Geography:
Asia, North Korea, and United States of America

9. Crossed Wires: Recalibrating Engagement with North Korea for an Era of Competition with China

Author:
Kristine Lee, Daniel Kliman, and Joshua Fitt
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for a New American Security (CNAS)
Abstract:
The United States’ current diplomacy with North Korea has enduring implications for its strategic competition with China. Yet within the American foreign policy establishment, rising to the China challenge and managing the nuclear threat emanating from North Korea are often treated as two distinct rather than connected strands of the United States’ agenda in Northeast Asia. The rationale for maintaining some degree of bureaucratic and substantive segmentation between the two issue sets is well-founded. Addressing the North Korean threat warrants energy, resources, attention, and expertise independent of the “great power competition” framework delineated in the 2017 National Security Strategy and the 2018 National Defense Strategy. But excessive stovepiping may, at best, cause Washington to leave opportunities on the table that could advance its regional priorities, and at worst to risk the creation of mutually incompatible approaches to North Korea and China. U.S. negotiations with North Korea have already created strategic openings for China. The “security guarantees” that Pyongyang has demanded include, for example, the cessation of U.S. joint military exercises with South Korea and the removal from the Korean Peninsula of all American “strategic assets” such as nuclear-capable air and naval assets as well as anti-missile systems that could also be leveraged in a military contingency with China. As U.S. negotiators have locked horns with North Korean interlocutors since President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un’s initial diplomatic foray in June 2018, China has touted its role as a champion of peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, while using its relative proximity to Pyongyang to systematically undercut America’s approach. During the United States’ “maximum pressure” campaign in 2017, Beijing cast Pyongyang a vital lifeline, facilitating illegal ship-to-ship transfers of North Korean coal and petroleum in 2018, while leading a concerted push with Russia at the U.N. Security Council to try to fragment the North Korean sanctions regime. And China is poised to open the floodgates of investments into North Korea, particularly through strategic infrastructure projects in the event that Pyongyang’s demands for the relief of international sanctions yield results. Despite all of this, U.S. officials at the highest levels have publicly downplayed intimations of China’s counterproductive activities, thereby validating Beijing’s narrative that it has played a constructive role in supporting the United States’ approach to North Korea.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North Korea, North America, and United States of America

10. Cooperation and Hedging: Comparing US and South Korean Views of China

Author:
Karl Friedhoff, Dina Smeltz, J. James Kim, Kang Chungku, and Scott A. Snyder
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Chicago Council on Global Affairs
Abstract:
While Seoul and Washington currently agree on using high-level diplomacy to encourage North Korea to denuclearize, South Korean and US approaches toward China differ and could become a source of friction between the two allies. Under President Donald Trump, the United States has confronted China through tariffs on Chinese imports and identified China as a near-peer adversary. Meanwhile, South Korean President Moon Jae-in has made efforts to end a dispute with China over the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system and indicated openness to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Public preferences in both the United States and South Korea are not necessarily aligned with their own governments’ policies toward China. Chicago Council and Asan Institute surveys conducted in 2019 find that both South Koreans and Americans see a strengthened US-ROK alliance as an asset in dealing with China, suggesting that Washington and Seoul can afford to strengthen coordination between their policies toward China.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Geopolitics, and Strategic Competition
Political Geography:
China, Asia, South Korea, North Korea, North America, and United States of America