RealClearWorld - North Korea

Most Recent Articles

The Myth of Rogue States - Nader Mousavizadeh, Newsweek

A year after Barack Obama relaunched America's relations with the world's rogue states, the verdict is in: from Burma to North Korea, Venezuela to Iran, the outstretched hand has b...

Managing North Korean Risks - RAND Corporation

In recent years, U.S. commanders of the ROK/U.S. Combined Forces Command have been unanimous in stating that CFC could defeat a North Korean invasion. Nevertheless, they have also ...

Tales from North Korea's Gulags - Donald Kirk, Asia Times

No one should imagine that American missionary Robert Park is getting the same relatively benign treatment at the hands of his North Korean "hosts" ...

Obama Makes Autocrats Rejoice - Gordon Chang, Forbes

In Beijing General Secretary Hu Jintao is sporting a big grin. Kim Jong Il is breaking out another case of his favorite Hennessy in North Korea. And in Tehran, Supreme Leader Ayato...

Where Is Obama's Foreign Policy Headed? - John Bolton, Commentary Mag

Where is Barack Obama’s foreign policy headed? In answering, one must accept a measure of humility. Predicting American policy makes more fools than sages. That goes double for f...

North Korea's Two-Track Strategy - Tong Kim, Korea Times

There is an interesting similarity in strategy between the United States and North Korea. Both sides are taking a two-track approach to the issue of nuclear weapons. Washington's t...

Obama's Year of Foreign Policy Fumbles - Peter Brookes, China Post

Let me be clear (as President Obama loves to say): After a year in office, there isn't much for this White House to brag about foreign policy-wise, in spite of rhetorical flourishe...

The Doomsday Clock Keeps Ticking - Lawrence Krauss, Los Angeles Times

Last week, on behalf of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, I announced that the Doomsday Clock -- established in 1947 by scientists who had worked on the first atomic bomb in 1...

Pyongyang's Forgotten Kidnap Victim - Joshua Stanton, The New Ledger

The Reverend Kim Dong Shik, a U.S. lawful permanent resident, was kidnapped from China by North Korean agents 10 years ago today. Rev. Kim was there helping North Korean refugees. ...

The Rise of South Korea - B. J. Lee, Newsweek

For the first time in modern history, South Korea is laying claim to lead the club of rich nations. South Korea became the first member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation...

Why China Loves Rogue States - Isaac Stone Fish, Newsweek

China is sometimes cast in the West as a selfish and intransigent child. Looking out for its own interests, this line of reasoning goes, it won't push Khartoum to curb attacks in D...

Obama Could Earn Nobel on North Korea Rights - Stanton, New Ledger

Nearly a year after President Obama was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, someone in his a administration has finally gotten around to denouncing the human rights record of a re...

Obama Is Right to Ignore North Korea - Fred Kaplan, Slate

North Korea offered to resume talks on its nuclear-weapons program this week. President Obama ignored the overture"”and properly so. In its proposal, Pyongyang's foreign mini...

Why Should Anyone Still Trust Kim? - Joshua Stanton, The New Ledger

What is the objective of negotiating with North Korea at all? How you answer that question may depend on whether you believe North Korea cheated on the first Agreed Framework with ...

North Korea's Money Troubles - Nicholas Eberstadt, Wall Street Journal

The past month has seen an extraordinary spectacle in North Korea: the failure of a hastily announced "currency reform" and the subsequent collapse of the won, the official domesti...

American Missionary Tests Pyongyang - Donald Kirk, Asia Times

WASHINGTON - Despite being a self-declared atheist, German human-rights activist Dr Norbert Vollertsen applauds the daring of a Korean-American ...

Obama Must Call Out North Korea on Rights - Gordon Chang, Forbes

On Dec. 29, North Korea said it had detained an American citizen who had crossed into the country from China on Christmas Eve. That individual is believed to be Christian activist ...

North Korea's Nuke Game Continues - Tong Kim, Korea Times

As we all know now, U.S. special envoy Stephen Bosworth delivered President Barack Obama's letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il through the first vice minister of foreign affa...

South Korea to Widen Security Role - David Axe, World Politics Review

More than 56 years after the end of the Korean War ushered in a long period of relative military isolation, South Korea is finally taking steps towards a regional security role com...

Weapons Seizure Hits North Korea Hard - Brian McCartan, Asia Times

BANGKOK - The detention in Thailand of a cargo plane transporting weapons and the arrest of its crew remain shrouded in mystery. The destination of the ...

Obama's Foreign Engagement Scorecard - James Traub, New York Times

If there is a one-word handle that fits the conduct of foreign relations in Barack Obama’s first year as president, it is “engagement.” The Obama administration h...

How to Make Progress on North Korea - Henry Kissinger, Washington Post

The American special representative for North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, returned from Pyongyang last week after unusually benign conversations. The North Korean government affirmed ...

Arms Embargo Is Hurting North Korea - Donald Kirk, Asia Times

The more things change, the more they stay the same. The great bargaining game to persuade North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il to puh-leeze be so k...

An Understanding with Pyongyang - Japan Times

The Dec. 8-10 visit to Pyongyang by the U.S. special representative for North Korean policy, Stephen Bosworth, did not produce a concrete result on the issue of North Korea's nucle...

North Korea Caught Smuggling Weapons - Joshua Stanton, The New Ledger

North Korea, which was removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism last year, has been caught — wait for it — smuggling weapons again. The 35 tons of arms were...

What the North Korean Weapons Seizure Means - Korea Times

Two questions arise immediately upon watching the news that Thai authorities have seized a cargo aircraft carrying North Korean weapons: How could the North prepare to smuggle mi...

Obama Doctrine Already Bearing Fruit - Jackson Diehl, Washington Post

President Obama's appearance in Oslo last week gave cause for his critics to remind the world, again, of everything his peace-prize-winning diplomacy hasn't accomplished so far. Th...

Obama Gives Kim a Free Pass - Stephen Hayes, Weekly Standard

In his Nobel acceptance speech last week, President Obama spoke eloquently on what he called a "just peace"--a peace that is not possible without the recognition of basic human rig...

North Korea Negotiations Key to U.S. Security - Arthur Cyr, China Post

In the past, well-aimed economic pressure on North Korea has paid off. For example, in March 2007, international financial pressure spearheaded by the United States was instrument...

Diplomatic Deja Vu in North Korea - Donald Kirk, Asia Times

Whatever happened to the two agreements reached at six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program in 2007, at which North Korea agreed on quite ...

How to Deal with a Nuclear North Korea - Doug Bandow, National Interest

Special envoy Stephen Bosworth has returned from Pyongyang after what he called "exploratory talks, not negotiations" over North Korea's nuclear program. Before that the so-called ...

U.S., China Diverge on North Korea - Park & Thompson, Financial Times

function floatContent(){var paraNum = "3" paraNum = paraNum - 1;var tb = document.getElementById('floating-con');var nl = document.getElementById('floating-target');if(tb.getElem...

North Korea's Ajumma Rebellion - Joshua Stanton, The New Ledger

The unseen pillars of Korean society are its ajummas. “Ajumma” — literally “aunt” — is one of those wonderfully untranslatable Korean words &mda...

Pyongyang Sets Stage for U.S. Envoy - Kim Myong Chol, Asia Times

The United States point man on North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, on Tuesday began a three-day visit to North Korea, in what is the first direct talks between the ...

North Korea, China Ties Worry Seoul - Kang Hyun-kyung, Korea Times

North Korea is becoming ever more reliant on China after playing a high-stakes poker game this year with a second nuclear test and launching missiles despite repeated warnings from...

China's North Korea Problem - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Ever since North Korea began to acquire the elements of a nuclear weapons program in the late ’80s—but especially since Beijing became mediator of the ill-fated Six Par...

The U.S. Prepares to Engage North Korea - Korea Times

With the formal U.S.-North Korea talks just two weeks away, initial pessimism seems to be giving way to positive expectations. There were some undeniably promising signs o...

Breaking the Pattern with North Korea - Japan Times

U.S. President Barack Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung Bak reaffirmed in Seoul on Thursday that they will seek a "definite and comprehensive resolution" to the North Kore...

World Must Engage North Korea - John Delury, The Japan Times

SEOUL — Negotiations over the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula look set to resume. Sadly, they are unlikely to end soon. Talk of a "grand bargain" remains just that — t...

Beating Kim at His Own Game - Andrei Lankov, Int'l Herald Tribune

President Obama is scheduled to arrive in Seoul on Wednesday for a summit meeting with President Lee Myung-bak. No doubt, North Korea’s nuclear weapons program will play a maj...

Korea's Berlin Wall - Wall Street Journal

One trigger for the collapse of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago was the flow of East Germans across their country's newly opened border to Hungary, then on through Austria to West Ger...

South Korea's Growing Soft Power - Joseph Nye, The Korea Times

When the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) met in Thailand last month, South Korea was an important presence. Quietly, South Korea has moved away from being defined ...

U.S. Finally Outsmarting North Korea - Andrei Lankov, Asia Times

In the past few weeks, North Korean watchers have been confronted with a sight they do not see frequently: Americans outsmarting North Koreans. ...

Why Does Che Guevara Resonate in the West? - Marian L. Tupy, RCW

Twenty years ago, communism collapsed in Central and Eastern Europe. Today, it survives in North Korea and Cuba - countries where one can still see empty shops, long queues, dilapi...

Passing the Buck on North Korea - Donald Kirk, Asia Times

SEOUL - From his seat of power in Pyongyang, Kim Jong-il waves a lordly hand. Here comes former United States president Bill Clinton with his retinue, ...

North Korea

Related Videos