... concerns stepping up international economic sanctions designed in the long run to force Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. And the third approach assumes the creation of a system of international guarantees with regard to North Korea’s security that would make nuclear weapons unnecessary for Pyongyang – even in the eyes of the North Korean leadership, which is extremely sensitive to real or perceived security threats. Sometimes it is proposed to combine elements of the second and third approaches, with the ...
... “block the deal” — the development of the situation depends on the reaction of other countries, in particular “what will happen in Russia, China, Europe and other countries.” Ilya Kravchenko noted that the Iranian problem is similar to the North Korean problem: “if you press on the regime, the regime will want to possess nuclear weapons.”
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... 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 between the three countries impedes them from ...
... and a new escalation could happen at any moment.
The Northeast Asian drama involves three main actors: North Korea, the United States, and China. What are the motives behind the key characters in this drama, which more often than not smacks of farce?
North Korea is driven by the basic instinct of survival in the face of actual and imaginary threats on the part of the U.S. and South Korea. The only way for Pyongyang to safeguard itself against its external enemies and preserve sovereignty is to have nuclear weapons.
Alexey Arbatov:
U.S. Nuclear Warheads' Scary Modernization
The U.S., for its part, is trying to prevent the country which has viewed the former as its main adversary for nearly 70 years, from turning into a nuclear power. At the same ...
... military infrastructure facilities in Okinawa and Guam. In the mid-1990s, Rodong-1 missiles with a range of 1300–1500 kilometres were put into service
[17]
. These missiles, which can hit any target in Japan, have often been named as carriers of nuclear weapons in North Korea. A considerable number of these missiles is thought to have been built and they are combat-ready. The Musudan missile is a potential threat to Guam
[18]
, home of Andersen Air Force Base, the main U.S. strategic aviation base in the region....
... its opponents did not yield to blackmail and did not begin negotiations with North Korea: it’s hard to believe that they did not know the likely consequences. In other words, any unpredictability in terms of this issue is out of the question.
North Korea has made another step in the development of nuclear weapons, but high-sounding declarations and meetings are largely full of North Korean scientists’ and military’s self-praise, aimed at both the international community and their own leadership.
It is true that there has been a certain ...