U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrives in Asia today for meetings seeking to reassure allies in South Korea and Japan and encourage new Chinese President Xi Jinping to increase pressure on North Korea to drop its threats and nuclear-weapons development. Kerry will ask China to abide by United Nations sanctions against North Korea and shut off the flow […]
U.S. Web users are searching for information about North Korea with astounding, unprecedented frequency. Google searches for “North Korea,” currently seven times the previous peak during the country’s 2006 nuclear test, are dramatically outpacing those for Beyonce or even President Obama. Last week, North Korea was the third most-popular term on Twitter, following only Easter and Good Friday. […]
Although North Korea and Iran are thousands of kilometers apart on opposite sides of Eurasia, they are linked — directly as well as indirectly — in the North Korean crisis. Iran’s nuclear and long-range ballistic missile ambitions are silent actors in the confrontation between North Korea and a wide range of countries in the international community, […]
North Korea is a constant enigma, a point made apparent once again in the current crisis. Analysts of every stripe have mispredicted its behavior and longevity for decades, and this time around, it is again very unclear what exactly they want. So rather than make any predictions that will turn out to be laughably wrong next month, […]
There are two schools of thought about what lies behind North Korea’s increasingly frenzied posturing. The first goes like this: The rhetoric emanating from Pyongyang, including calls to “break the waists of the crazy enemies [and] totally cut their windpipes”, is no worse than their decades-old ritualistic promises to turn South Korea into a “sea […]
The “Great Triangle” of the Asia-Pacific region formed by the United States, Russia, and China is particularly important in both geopolitical and military-strategic terms. The strategic arsenals and military programs of the two traditional superpowers and the steady buildup of the nuclear and missile capabilities of China, the newly emergent superpower of the twenty-first century, […]
One of the interesting effects of ballistic missile defense is how it has affected relations between states. The decades of tension that have arisen between Moscow and Washington over strategic defense issue are well known. Now U.S. ballistic missile defenses (BMD) are driving China and Russia closer together. Read Here – The Diplomat
After a brief lull, North Korea has begun acting up again: Kim Jong Un has vowed to re-start the country’s nuclear program, has declared the near-60 year-old armistice between his country and South Korea “void”, and, in his latest provocation, has prevented workers from the South from entering the jointly-owned Kaesong Industrial Park, once a symbol of hopeful reconciliation. And so […]
The Obama administration’s “pivot” to Asia made sense, because China was starting to doubt U.S. staying power. Now that Washington has sent Beijing a clear message it will be around for the long haul, however, the time has come for the two countries to deepen and institutionalize their relationship in order to secure Asia’s lasting […]
The world’s task in addressing North Korea’s saber rattling is made no easier by the fact that it confronts an impoverished and effectively defeated country. On the contrary, it is in such circumstances that calm foresight is most necessary. The genius of the Habsburg Empire’s Prince Klemens von Metternich in framing a new international order after […]
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