Kim Jong-un played a brilliant diplomatic gambit, breaking out of a seemingly hopeless dead-end
2018 started with a sensation in Asia – a “New Year’s gift,” if we are to use the words of Ri Son-Gwon, head of North Korea’s delegation at the inter-Korean talks held on January 9, 2018 in the South Korean segment of the demilitarized zone in Panmunjom.
In his traditional New Year’s speech, supreme leader of North Korea Kim Jong-un proposed that an inter-Korean ...
... aspect is connected with deployment of the ABM THAAD elements on the Korean Peninsula: while it is described formally as the ABM defense, in the regional context such actions not so much reduce but rather increase tensions. The presence of the ABM tempts North Korea to strike first and to try to evade a retaliation blow. Thus South Korea happened to be involved in the US–North Korean confrontation.
The probability that the North Korean problem would be resolved by force has grown. Through its chief ...
On the night of November 29, 2017, the DPRK tested the Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile. According to Pentagon, the missile flew about 1000 km and fell into the Sea of Japan. The North Korean military emphasizes that the Hwasong-15 is capable to carry an "extremely heavy nuclear warhead" and reach any point in the mainland of the United States. The DPRK leader Kim Jong-un after the successful test of the new Hwasong-15 ...
“Rocket Man” Kim Jong-Un surely believes we are doing what Abe most feared! So does Vladimir Putin. In an article written two weeks ago but published only yesterday by the BESA Center for Strategic Studies and Linkedin, we made two points about North Korea. 1. That the president’s coercive diplomacy against North Korea worked temporarily. Since Sept. 15 there has been no launching of North Korean missiles. But we also warned that our foreign foes, particularly the North Koreans, but also ...
... and is leading the effort to try to undo it. Her reasoning, as she alleges in her new memoir, What Happened, is that Trump’s victory was the result of a “Russian plot.” To Morell, Trump’s election was “the political equivalent of 9/11.”
North Korea: Coercive Diplomacy
As Trump was preparing for his Far East tour, he was demonized by two former presidents with smear code words. “Bigotry,” declared George W. Bush on October 19, “…is blasphemy against the American creed…Russian ...
... where humanity suffers from a threat of nuclear blackmailing by states, as well as militants if tactical nukes accidentally fall into their hand. Interestingly, both countries accused of nuclear blackmailing happen to be Frontline states of China.
North Korea
When President Trump started his visit to Asia, after a series of provocative statements by the US and North Korea, it was being speculated that some concrete action plan will emerge in his handling of North Korea. During this marathon visit,...
The Dialogue with the North Korean Leadership Now Has to be Conducted from a Position of Weakness, Rather than one of Strength
The crisis unfolding before our very eyes with regard to North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs did not appear today, or even yesterday....
... intention to cancel the “nuclear deal” with Iran, concluded in July 2015. In the meanwhile, Washington is uttering unfounded accusations towards Russia on violating the START Treaty. All this is taking place against a backdrop of the ongoing crisis over North Korea’s nuclear program. In this context, the cooperation of the three key nuclear powers — Russia, the United States, and China — is becoming a vital necessity. The question of how this interaction can be implemented became the main topic ...
... Weapons.
On October the 6
th
the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that it was awarding the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize to ICAN – the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. The choice was largely symbolic as with the escalation of the North Korean crisis the threat of the use of the nuclear weapons becomes real for the first time in many years. Although there is general consensus between Russia, China and the US on the need to contain nuclear ambitions of Pyongyang, diverse differences ...
“The Kremlin really believes the North Korean leadership should get additional assurances and confidence that the United States is not in the regime change business,” Andrey Kortunov, head of the Russian International Affairs Council, a think-tank close to the Russian Foreign Ministry,...