The Strained Alliance: Peking,Pyongyang, Moscow and thePolitics of the Korean Civil War

Abstract

The burden of many conventional interpretations of the Korean War is that the conflict represented a test of strength between the Soviet and American Cold War antagonists which helped establish the ground rules for limited war in the nuclear age. The great virtue of Simmons' book is that it confronts us with the obvious but hitherto elusive truth that the Korean Civil War (as it is correctly called here) originated in Korean political issues. Simmons paints Korean features onto the Soviet-American Cold War mask. His book's second significant contribution is in its probing beneath the surface unity of the communist camp in the early 1950s to suggest that serious conflicts of interest arose between Moscow, Peking and Pyongyang in the course of the war.     

Statement on peace and reunification of the Korean Peninsula

Abstract

We who have been praying and working for peace and the reunification of Korea would like to express our deep concerns about the rising tensions surrounding the north Korean nuclear controversy and the potentially imminent war on the Korean peninsula. We still remember vividly the nightmare of the Korean War beginning 25 June 1950, and we have endured tremendously painful experiences for the last half century because of the division of our country. We would like to express our positions to the governments of the Republic of Korea (ROK), the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), the United States, and to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), as we firmly believe that the shortest route to reunification is through the reconciliation and solidarity of the Korean people:     

Economic Interdependence and Security on the Korean Peninsula: The Impact of North Korean Special Economic Zones

Abstract

Given North Korea’s desire to maintain nuclear weapons—and barring its unexpected collapse—how can the US and its allies establish and maintain a peaceful Northeast Asia? Current US policy alternatives do not offer an effective means for removing North Korean nuclear weapons without creating many more serious problems that jeopardize a stable future for Northeast Asia. However, by engaging in foreign direct investment (FDI) through North Korea’s special economic zones, the United States and other nations can engage North Koreans at all levels of society and build a future environment of cooperation and stability. Such a long-term engagement policy will prove more successful than isolation, sanctions, or military force, and will bolster regional actors’ efforts to develop additional stability-inducing policies.     

Political suicide among Korean youth

Abstract

A striking aspect of the South Korean political protest movement of the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s was the frequent self-immolation of young Korean activists. This trend toward political suicide—politically motivated voluntary death—began with the laborer Chun Tae-il's suicide in 1970 and increased dramatically in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It is estimated that in the 1980s alone nearly one hundred young Koreans put an end to their lives as a form of antigovernment protest! This article explores why so many young people in Korea have chosen to take their own lives in this way.     

The Korean War: An International History,by William Stueck

Abstract

William Stueck's The Korean War: An International History will be required reading for all scholars of the war for some time to come. Intensively researched, the book is a readable, but detailed account of Korean War diplomacy accompanied by nearly twenty pages of bibliography.     

Old and new Korean wars

Abstract

As I write this we have come off one week when it looked as if we might have another war in Korea, and the next week when peace broke out between Washington and Pyongyang as a result of Jimmy Carter's meetings with Kim Il Sung. This pattern of crisis followed by relaxation has lasted at least since the spring of 1993, when North Korea threatened to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. During the entire period most Americans and especially our print and television media have demonstrated that they have no understanding of the terrible destructiveness of the Korean War—and therefore they easily conjure up a new one. Indeed, talk of a new war in Korea is casual and almost routine in the United States.     

Economic Engagement and Nuclear Security in Asia

Abstract

Economic engagement and nuclear security are two key contemporary issues on the Asian security landscape. The development of US economic and strategic ties with India is symbolic of Washington's general pivot towards Asia, and the US-India nuclear pact, which combined economic and strategic aspects, and also highlights the potentially growing interest in nuclear energy. This review essay examines these economic and nuclear aspects of Asian security, points out problems and prospects concerning the governance of nuclear weapon programs, and the commercial industry's role in managing nuclear proliferation.     

A Conceptual Analysis of the Six-Party Talks: Building Peace through Security Assurances

Abstract

Dissuading proliferators from developing nuclear weapons entails application of the global nonproliferation norm. Insomuch as proliferators' motivations to develop nuclear weapons are embedded in regional security concerns, security assurances taken for nuclear disarmament would include measures addressing these regional security concerns. Such measures are compatible with the need not to motivate other proliferators to develop nuclear weapons. The September 2005 Joint Statement of the Six-Party Talks incorporated a pledge to build a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula, which demonstrated the link between the regional undertakings and North Korea's denuclearization process. North Korea's nuclear test is no doubt a deviation from the document and the international community must retain collective sanctions. However, building a peace regime remains an effective means for defusing the nuclear standoff.     

Never Say Never: Considerations about the Possibility of Australia Acquiring Nuclear Weapons

Abstract

Australia's decision to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and forego the acquisition of nuclear weapons was taken on medium-term strategic grounds. While similar circumstances prevail today, it is possible to identify three conditions for the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Australia to be a credible option: the existence of a major threat to Australia; a loss of confidence in US guarantees; and allied acquiescence to an Australian nuclear program. These conditions interact with Australia's relationship with Indonesia and the technological and industrial feasibility of “tactical” and “strategic” nuclear weapons postures, respectively. The only Australian nuclear posture that does not lack credibility in light of all these factors is the use of “tactical” weapons to deter major landings on the Australian mainland.     

US Extended Nuclear Deterrence and Nuclear Order: An Australian Perspective

Abstract

This article addresses the question of how US extended nuclear deterrence might endure in a shifting Asia-Pacific where the traditional nuclear order underpinning the credibility of US security guarantees is deteriorating. The Australian case study demonstrates how periods of nuclear order and disorder can inform a state's attitudes toward the credibility of extended nuclear deterrence. Australia's interest in a nuclear weapons capability from 1956 to 1972 was symptomatic of a period of nuclear disorder. This interest declined from the early 1970s due to changes in both the global and regional environments where the proliferation and use of nuclear weapons was relatively contained. This emerging, recognizable nuclear order diminished the interest in an indigenous nuclear weapons capability and led Canberra to rely on US extended nuclear deterrence. This order has remained fairly robust for more than 30 years. However, beyond 2012, we may yet witness a breakdown in this order. This will generate a much greater interest by US allies in the operational aspects of US extended nuclear deterrence.     

What happened in Korea? Rethinking Korean history 1945–1953

Abstract

The Pueblo incident was a stunning reminder of the hysteria and racism associated with the word Korea in the U.S. In spite of Vietnam and the great changes that have taken place within American society, the U.S. government and the military had little trouble in resuscitating the spectre of “brainwashing” and torture. The most diabolical cunning was attributed to the Koreans, who had legally captured the Pueblo and its crew. But as though at the touch of a switch, the American media and much of the nation again began to call for blood as they had done in the years 1950 to 1953. It would be a mistake to underestimate the success of America's campaign of vilification against the Korean people and the Korean revolutionary movement. At times the phobia reaches absurd proportions.     

Cyberwarfare in the Korean Peninsula: Asymmetries and Strategic Responses

In this paper, we argue that the two Koreas’ intentions and actions on the cyber front point toward the possibility that they have engaged in cyber warfare against each other. From South Korea’s standpoint, a key concern has been North Korea’s advanced cyber warfare capabilities and alleged involvement of its substantial workforce in the Internet’s dark side activities. These issues need to be looked at the backdrop of the North’s nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities. This paper draws principally upon theories and concepts from military strategy and warfare to examine the contexts, mechanisms, and processes associated with the cyber warfare in the Korean peninsula. We also compare the two Koreas in terms of various forms of asymmetries in cyber warfare and cyber attacks. Also highlighted in the paper are South Korea’s recent initiatives and actions to enhance cyber-offense and cyber-defense capabilities.     

The Korean Communist movement

Abstract

The first full-scale war fought under the leadership of the United States after 1945 was that against the Korean people. The Korean War of 1950-53 remains, without the slightest doubt, the most important un-excavated event in modern imperialist and revolutionary history.     

ABE'S NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE

ABSTRACT

Prime Minister Abe Shinzð's nuclear renaissance involves downplaying risks, restarting reactors, building new ones, and exporting reactor technology and equipment. Polls in Japan indicate that the public remains overwhelmingly opposed to Abe's nuclear agenda, but in various national and local elections since late 2012 antinuclear candidates have not fared well. This article examines the disjuncture between public preferences and electoral outcomes and why is it likely that Japan will restart reactors despite widespread concerns about safety, the high costs of nuclear energy, and the lack of a site for permanent disposal of nuclear waste. The safety myth is being recalibrated, but the author argues that it remains based on rosy assumptions in a nation especially prone to massive seismic disasters. The reinstatement of nuclear energy in the 2014 national energy policy marks a victory for the nuclear village, a remarkable example of institutional resilience in the face of extremely adverse developments since the massive earthquake and tsunami of 11 March 2011 that precipitated three reactor meltdowns in Fukushima. Despite extensive revelations about shoddy safety practices in the nuclear industry and collusive relations between regulators and those they regulate, Abe has successfully promoted a nuclear revival that few would have thought possible before his election in 2012. Reactor restarts face a number of hurdles, but the pronuclear lobby now finds it has a policy opening. The summer of 2014 has been a nuclear-free one, but in all likelihood it will be Japan's last for decades to come.     

Revisiting Colonial Dismemberment in South Africa: On Cultural Text and the Mandela Nuclear Family

Abstract

For many years, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela—in a number of his public statements and writings—frankly expressed his regrets regarding the strain that his anti-apartheid activism put on his immediate and nuclear family. From his marriage to Evelyn Mase, and later to his second marriage to Nomzamo “Winnie” Madikizela, one central thread that permeates both is the impact of colonial-apartheid dismemberment on the Mandela nuclear family. Thus, the focus of this article is on the critical analysis of a cultural text that was authored by the late former statesman to reflect on various aspects of his life. Relying on his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, the objective of the article is to understand how such a cultural text registers the idea of colonial-apartheid dismemberment as lived by the Mandela nuclear family under colonial-apartheid oppression. Besides the 27 years spent at Robben Island prison, much of Mandela's life was characterised by his neglect of family responsibilities, as a result of the lived realities of his activism against colonial-apartheid South Africa. Thus, using the case of Mandela's nuclear family structure, the article critically analyses the role of cultural texts such as autobiographies in registering colonial-apartheid dismemberment in South Africa.     

Comments by Arif Dirlik,November 1987 Chinese socialism and problems of Marxism

Abstract

In the year since John Anglim's article was written, many events have affected the future of the island microrepublic. Although the new administrations in Koror and Washington began 1989 on a hopeful note, it rapidly became clear how much Palau's options had been limited by the United States. By the year's end, Palauans were scheduled to go to the polls once again to vote on the Compact of Free Association they have rejected six times in the last six years, with no change in the fundamental issues of land rights, nuclear materials, and sovereignty. Regardless of the outcome, which could go either way, Palau faces a difficult and uncertain future.     

Introduction

Abstract

“The only thing that convinces people like Kim II Sung is the threat of force and extinction,” blasted U.S. senator John McCain as the nuclear crisis in Korea neared the flashpoint in early June 1994. His words rang out as the multilateral tension surrounding North Korea's nuclear program escalated after more than a year of rapid policy vacillations and fluctuating rhetoric. The United States threatened to seek sanctions in the U.N. Security Council, and North Korea vowed to treat any international aggression as an act of war. What is remarkable about McCain's war yearnings, however, is not their aberrance in the otherwise cool-headed world of international diplomacy, but their similarity to imperial declarations toward North Korea since the battles of the Korean War. It is a sentiment routinely echoed by the mainstream Western press.     

Theater Missile Defense and Japanese Nuclear Weapons

Abstract

The development of a joint US-Japan theater missile defense system could have significant ramifications beyond the defense of Japan and of American forces in the region. A growing debate within Japan on its international security position, the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and questions about the role of the United States in the region conspire to create conditions for significant changes in Japan's conception of its security status and its long‐term political-military calculations. By upgrading Japan's strategic responsibilities, theater missile defense could inadvertently induce a reassessment of many of its national security policies, perhaps even the decision to forego nuclear weapons.     

Safety and Security in the Malacca Straits: The Limits of Collaboration

Abstract

This paper traces the development of the Six-Party process through to the joint statement by the parties on September 19, 2005, considers the subsequent decision by North Korea to stage a nuclear test in the context of the apparent stasis of the process, and then reviews the international condemnation that was the result of those tests. North Korea's decision to return to the talks is then discussed in light of the policy issues that must be solved if the September 19 principles can be realized in practice.     

Constructive Partner or Menacing Threat? Analyzing China's Role in the Iranian Nuclear Program

Abstract

This article examines contrasting paradigms of China's foreign policy in the context of China's role in the Iranian nuclear program. In contrast to revisionist and status quo paradigms, which view China as either a menacing threat or a constructive partner of the United States, this article advances a reformist paradigm that presents China as neither a follower nor an opponent of US policies. Rather, the reformist paradigm suggests that although China has placed a premium on its relations with Washington, it has also pursued stealthily obstructive policies in Iran that have enabled it to garner substantial narrow gains at the expense of compromising the US agenda in the region. The author calls this grand strategy opportunistic pragmatism.