Kim Jong Un and the Bomb

Kim Jong Un and the Bomb
Author: Ankit Panda
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 417
Release: 2020-07-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 0190060360

In September 2017, North Korea shocked the world by exploding the most powerful nuclear device tested anywhere in 25 years. Months earlier, it had conducted the first test flight of a missile capable of ranging much of the United States. By the end of that year, Kim Jong Un, the reclusive state's ruler, declared that his nuclear deterrent was complete. Today, North Korea's nuclear weapons stockpile and ballistic missile arsenal continues to grow, presenting one of the most serious challenges to international security to date. Internal regime propaganda has called North Korea's nuclear forces the country's "treasured sword," underscoring the cherished place of these weapons in national strategy. Fiercely committed to self-reliance, Kim remains determined to avoid unilateral disarmament. Kim Jong Un and the Bomb tells the story of how North Korea-once derided in the 1970s as a "fourth-rate pipsqueak" of a country by President Richard Nixon-came to credibly threaten the American homeland by November 2017. Ankit Panda explores the contours of North Korea's nuclear capabilities, the developmental history of its weapons programs, and the prospects for disarming or constraining Kim's arsenal. With no signs that North Korea's total disarmament is imminent over the next years or even decade, Panda explores the consequences of a nuclear-armed North Korea for the United States, South Korea, and the world.

Confronting North Korea's Nuclear Ambitions

Confronting North Korea's Nuclear Ambitions
Author: Kongdan Oh Hassig
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2003
Genre: North Korean nuclear program. Korean
ISBN:

U.S. options to deal with North Korea's emerging nuclear weapons program include renewed engagement and a new negotiated agreement (as called for by North Korea), economic sanctions, military action, or Cold War-style hostile containment. The United States is trying to form a multilateral coalition to stop the North Korean nuclear program, but the regional states hold differing views on the best options to pursue. China and Russia, at relatively low risk from North Korean nuclear weapons, are promoting a compromise whereby the United States will guarantee the security of the North Korean regime in return for an end to North Korea's nuclear weapons program. Japan, which is directly threatened by North Korean nuclear weapons and missiles, prefers a tougher line, possibly including economic sanctions. South Korea is objectively at risk from North Korea, but because most South Koreans believe that the risk is very low, they favor a policy of dialogue and compromise. The positions of all these states may harden if North Korea stages a nuclear weapons test, but until that happens, the United States can expect little support for either economic sanctions or military action in dealing with North Korea.

The North Korean Nuclear Program

The North Korean Nuclear Program
Author: James Clay Moltz
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2000
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780415923705

Drawing on previously unpublished Russian archival materials, this book is the first detailed history and current analysis of the North Korean nuclear program. The contributors discuss Soviet-North Korean nuclear relations, economic and military aspects of the nuclear program, the nuclear energy sector, North Korea's negotiations with the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, cooperative security, and U.S. policy. Unique in its focus on North Korean attitudes and perspectives, The North Korean Nuclear Program also includes Russian interviews with North Korean officials.

Meltdown

Meltdown
Author: Mike Chinoy
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Total Pages: 461
Release: 2010-03-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 1429930233

When George W. Bush took office in 2001, North Korea's nuclear program was frozen and Kim Jong Il had signaled he was ready to negotiate. Today, North Korea possesses as many as ten nuclear warheads, and possibly the means to provide nuclear material to rogue states or terrorist groups. How did this happen? Drawing on more than two hundred interviews with key players in Washington, Seoul, Tokyo, and Beijing, including Colin Powell, John Bolton, and ex–Korean president Kim Dae-jung, as well as insights gained during fourteen trips to Pyongyang, Mike Chinoy takes readers behind the scenes of secret diplomatic meetings, disputed intelligence reports, and Washington turf battles as well as inside the mysterious world of North Korea. Meltdown provides a wealth of new material about a previously opaque series of events that eventually led the Bush administration to abandon confrontation and pursue negotiations, and explains how the diplomatic process collapsed and produced the crisis the Obama administration confronts today.

Going Critical

Going Critical
Author: Joel S. Wit
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 495
Release: 2004-04-19
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0815796412

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

North Korea's Nuclear Weapons Development and Diplomacy

North Korea's Nuclear Weapons Development and Diplomacy
Author: Larry A. Niksch
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
Total Pages: 33
Release: 2010
Genre: History
ISBN: 1437922821

Contents: (1) North Korea¿s Nuclear Test and Withdrawal from the Six Party Talks: Bush Administration-North Korean Agreements and Failure of Implementation; Implementation Process; Verification Issue; Kim Jong-il¿s Stroke, and Political Changes Inside North Korea; Issues Facing the Obama Administration; (2) North Korea¿s Nuclear Programs: Plutonium Program; Highly Enriched Uranium Program; International Assistance; Nuclear Collaboration with Iran and Syria; North Korea¿s Delivery Systems; State of Nuclear Weapons Development; (3) Select Chronology; (4) For Additional Reading.

A New US National Security Team Confronts Difficult Choices with Iran and North Korea

A New US National Security Team Confronts Difficult Choices with Iran and North Korea
Author: Dr. Jack Caravelli
Publisher: King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies (KFCRIS)
Total Pages: 30
Release: 2018-05-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 603820668X

US President Donald Trump came to office having inherited a pair of seemingly intractable problems in regard to Iran and North Korea. The two countries’ peculiar historic relationship only adds to the complexity of the situation. Events over the past several years are forcing the Trump administration to simultaneously confront these two major political problems with nuclear weapons issues at their core. Iran maintains nuclear weapons options resulting from the flawed 2015 multilateral nuclear deal, and on May 8, 2018, President Trump announced he was ending US support for the deal and imposing new sanctions on Iran, setting in motion a flurry of diplomatic activity in Europe and the Middle East. In Asia, the unexpected and rapid progress of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (DPRK’s) nuclear weapons and long-range missile capabilities, as well as the challenge of navigating Kim Jong-un’s latest diplomatic moves, demand equally momentous decisions from the administration. Its approach has been to pursue negotiations aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. A bilateral summit is scheduled to begin on June 12 in Singapore. There are unique elements and capabilities in Iran and North Korea’s respective programs—the DPRK’s nuclear weapons capability is more advanced than Iran’s, for example—but at the same time, it is certain that both nations will be watching how President Trump and his new national security team deal with the other to identify signs of weakness and areas of possible exploitation. Trump’s decision on May 8, is a potential new beginning, not the last word, on this most complex of policy questions. All this will be followed shortly thereafter by US talks with the DPRK. No timetable has been established for the talks beyond the initial round on 12 June, and North Korean officials have said little about its proposed timelines or objectives beyond the most obvious points. If they occur at all, it is almost certain the talks now definitely will follow Trump’s decision on Iran. For this reason, it is certain the North Koreans will be tracking closely US actions and decisions. What is much less certain is what lessons the North Korean leadership will draw from Trump’s choices on Iran. This paper addresses the issues and choices available to the Trump administration in responding to the nuclear ambitions of Iran and further contextualizes the recent developments surrounding American nuclear diplomacy vis-à-vis North Korea.

Nuclear North Korea

Nuclear North Korea
Author: Victor D. Cha
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2005-04-26
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0231505337

The regime of Kim Jong-Il has been called "mad," "rogue," even, by the Wall Street Journal, the equivalent of an "unreformed serial killer." Yet, despite the avalanche of television and print coverage of the Pyongyang government's violation of nuclear nonproliferation agreements and existing scholarly literature on North Korean policy and security, this critical issue remains mired in political punditry and often misleading sound bites. Victor Cha and David Kang step back from the daily newspaper coverage and cable news commentary and offer a reasoned, rational, and logical debate on the nature of the North Korean regime. Coming to the issues from different perspectives—Kang believes the threat posed by Pyongyang has been inflated and endorses a more open approach, while Cha is more skeptical and advocates harsher measures—the authors together have written an essential work of clear-eyed reflection and authoritative analysis. They refute a number of misconceptions and challenge much faulty thinking that surrounds the discussion of North Korea, particularly the idea that North Korea is an irrational nation. Cha and Kang contend that however provocative, even deplorable, the Pyongyang government's behavior may at times be, it is not incomprehensible or incoherent. Neither is it "suicidal," they argue, although crisis conditions could escalate to a degree that provokes the North Korean regime to "lash out" as the best and only policy, the unintended consequence of which are suicide and/or collapse. Further, the authors seek to fill the current scholarly and policy gap with a vision for a U.S.-South Korea alliance that is not simply premised on a North Korean threat, not simply derivative of Japan, and not eternally based on an older, "Korean War generation" of supporters. This book uncovers the inherent logic of the politics of the Korean peninsula, presenting an indispensable context for a new policy of engagement. In an intelligent and trenchant debate, the authors look at the implications of a nuclear North Korea for East Asia and U.S. homeland security, rigorously assessing historical and current U.S. policy, and provide a workable framework for constructive policy that should be followed by the United States, Japan, and South Korea if engagement fails to stop North Korean nuclear proliferation.

The Peninsula Question

The Peninsula Question
Author: Yoichi Funabashi
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 612
Release: 2008-09-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 081573011X

In October 2002 the United States confronted North Korea with suspicions that Pyongyang was enriching uranium in violation of the Agreed Framework that the nations had worked out during the Clinton administration. North Korea subsequently evicted international monitors and resumed its nuclear weapons program. The Peninsula Question chronicles the resulting second Korean nuclear crisis. Japanese journalist Yoichi Funabashi, informed by interviews with more than 160 diplomats and decision makers from China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and the United States, provides a behind-the-scenes look at the negotiations to denuclearize the peninsula. Between 2002 and 2006, a series of top level diplomats, including the prime minister of Japan, attempted to engage with North Korea. Funabashi illustrates how the individual efforts of these major powers laid the groundwork for multilateral negotiations, first as the trilateral meeting and then as the Six-Party Talks. The first four rounds of talks (2003–2005) resulted in significant progress. Unfortunately, a lack of implementation after that breakthrough ultimately led to North Korea's missile tests in July and subsequent nuclear tests in October 2006. Th e Peninsula Question provides a window of understanding on the historical, geopolitical, and security concerns at play on the Korean peninsula since 2002. Offering multiple perspectives on the second Korean nuclear crisis, it describes more than just the U.S. and North Korean points of view. It pays special attention to China's dealings with North Korea, providing rare insights to into the decision-making processes of Beijing. This is an important, authoritative resource for understanding the crisis in Korea and diplomacy in Northeast Asia.