In June 1994 the United States went to the brink of war with North Korea. With economic sanctions impending, President Bill Clinton approved the dispatch of substantial reinforcements to Korea, and plans were prepared for attacking the North's nuclear weapons complex. The turning point came in an extraordinary private diplomatic initiative by former President Jimmy Carter and others to reverse the dangerous American course and open the way to a diplomatic settlement of the nuclear crisis. Few Americans know the full details behind this story or perhaps realize the devastating impact it could have had on the nation's post-Cold War foreign policy. In this lively and authoritative book, Leon Sigal offers an inside look at how the Korean nuclear crisis originated, escalated, and was ultimately defused. He begins by exploring a web of intelligence failures by the United States and intransigence within South Korea and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Sigal pays particular attention to an American mindset that prefers coercion to cooperation in dealing with aggressive nations. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with policymakers from the countries involved, he discloses the details of the buildup to confrontation, American refusal to engage in diplomatic give-and-take, the Carter mission, and the diplomatic deal of October 1994. In the post-Cold War era, the United States is less willing and able than before to expend unlimited resources abroad; as a result it will need to act less unilaterally and more in concert with other nations. What will become of an American foreign policy that prefers coercion when conciliation is more likely to serve its national interests? Using the events that nearly led the United States into a second Korean War, Sigal explores the need for policy change when it comes to addressing the challenge of nuclear proliferation and avoiding conflict with nations like Russia, Iran, and Iraq. What the Cuban missile crisis was to fifty years of superpower conflict, the North Korean nuclear crisis is to the coming era.

This book offers a broader theory of nuclear deterrence and examines the way nuclear and conventional deterrence interact with non-military factors in a series of historical case studies. The existing body of literature largely leans toward the analytical primacy of nuclear deterrence and it is often implicitly assumed that nuclear weapons are so important that, when they are present, other factors need not be studied. This book addresses this omission. It develops a research framework that incorporates the military aspects of deterrence, both nuclear and conventional, together with various perceptual factors, international circumstances, domestic politics, and norms. This framework is then used to re-examine five historical crises that brought two nuclear countries to the brink of war: the hostile asymmetric nuclear relations between the United States and China in the early 1960s; between the Soviet Union and China in the late 1960s; between Israel and Iraq in 1977–1981; between the United States and North Korea in 1992–1994; and, finally, between the United States and the Soviet Union during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. The main empirical findings challenge the common expectation that the threat of nuclear retaliation represents the ultimate deterrent. In fact, it can be said, with a high degree of confidence, that it was rather the threat of conventional retaliation that acted as a major stabilizer. This book will be of much interest to students of nuclear proliferation, cold war studies, deterrence theory, security studies and IR in general.

"As Robert Art makes clear in a groundbreaking conclusion, those results have been mixed at best. Art dissects the uneven performance of coercive diplomacy and explains why it has sometimes worked and why it has more often failed."--BOOK JACKET.

In this volume, leading scholars of U.S. foreign policy, international relations, and political psychology examine one of the most consequential and controversial statements of national security policy in contemporary American history. Unlike other books which focus only on unilateralism or preventive war, Stanley A. Renshon and Peter Suedfeld provide a comprehensive framework with which to analyze the Bush Doctrine by identifying five central and interrelated elements of the doctrine: American pre-eminence assertive realism equivocal alliances selective multilateralism democratic transformation. Given its centrality to American national security, and the fact that the effects of it are likely to be felt well into the twenty-first century, Understanding the Bush Doctrine provides a critically balanced and pointed assessment of the Bush Doctrine and its premises, as well as a fair appraisal of its implications and prospects.

This revealing and challenging study of the impact of famine on North Korea not only significantly enlarges our understanding of that hermetic country but also urges us to reassess how we deal with it.

The closing decade of the last century witnessed a great number of international agreements, but very little work was done on establishing institutions to monitor or implement them. Thus compliance has become a major issue. This volume offers a debate on aspects of the problem.

This book chronicles the political-military development of the Korean Peninsula since 1945, with particular attention to North Koreas pursuit of nuclear technology and nuclear weapons, and how it has shaped Northeast Asian security and non-proliferation policy and influenced the strategic choices of the United States and all regional powers. I focus on North Koreas leaders, institutions, political history, and the systems longer-term prospects. How has an isolated, highly idiosyncratic, small state repeatedly stymied or circumvented the policy preferences of much more powerful states, culminating with its withdrawal from the Non Proliferation Treaty (the only state ever to do so) and the testing of nuclear weapons in open defiance of adversaries and allies alike? What does this portend for the regions future? Unlike most of the literature that focuses on US non proliferation policy, this is a book about decision making in North Korea and the states survival in the face of daunting odds. It draws on extensive interviews with individuals in China, South Korea, Japan, Russia, and the EU who have had ample experience in and with North Korea, additional interviews with former US policy makers, and the results from two visits to the North. The author makes extensive use of archival materials from the Cold War International History Project, enabling a far fuller rendering of North Korean history than appears in most of the literature on the North Korean nuclear weapons issue.

Why does the Japanese government often alter its course of action under pressure from the United States, even when doing so apparently undermines Japan's own interests? Japan's marked responsiveness to U.S. preferences regarding foreign aid policy appears counterintuitive, since Japan's demonstrated capability to donate funds rivals and has previously surpassed that of the U.S. In Limits to Power, Akitoshi Miyashita posits that Japan's deference to the will of the U.S. results from Japan's continuing role as the more dependent partner in the two countries' interdependent diplomatic and economic relationship. Miyashita critically reviews the existing literature on Japanese foreign aid, then tests his own argument against five case studies. After analyzing critical junctures in Japan's history of foreign aid to China, Vietnam, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, he concludes that Japan's consistent sway under U.S. opinion reflects an act of will on Japan's part, rather than a lack of coherent policy stemming from bureaucratic politics. Limits to Power boldly challenges current arguments that Japan has successfully distanced itself from "reactive" politics.

This edited volume examines how the transition and diffusion of power in global politics is impacting on stability and order in Asia. Both in the academic field of International Relations (IR) and among policymakers, the big question today concerns the rise of China, the relative decline of the United States, and the increasing importance of Asia in global politics. The level of impact the international power transition will have in the region remains unclear, but observers agree that Asia is a potential tinderbox for crises and conflict. This volume brings together leading scholars from around the world to assess current thinking in IR on these issues. The authors apply appropriate theories and methods of analysis in their specific area of expertise to examine the likely effects of the changing global power distribution on Asia. There is also said to be an ongoing diffusion of power away from states to non-state actors in the region; hence, in addition to examining changing relations between the Great Powers, the book will also assess the implications that other actors, from terrorist groups, insurgents and organised crime syndicates, could have on stability and order. This book will be of much interest to students of Asian politics, security studies, diplomacy and international relations.

Democracies often go to war but almost never against each other. Indeed, "the democratic peace" has become a catchphrase among scholars and even U.S. Presidents. But why do democracies avoid fighting each other? Reliable Partners offers the first systematic and definitive explanation. Examining decades of research and speculation on the subject and testing this against the history of relations between democracies over the last two centuries, Charles Lipson concludes that constitutional democracies have a "contracting advantage"--a unique ability to settle conflicts with each other by durable agreements. In so doing he forcefully counters realist claims that a regime's character is irrelevant to war and peace. Lipson argues that because democracies are confident their bargains will stick, they can negotiate effective settlements with each other rather than incur the great costs of war. Why are democracies more reliable partners? Because their politics are uniquely open to outside scrutiny and facilitate long-term commitments. They cannot easily bluff, deceive, or launch surprise attacks. While this transparency weakens their bargaining position, it also makes their promises more credible--and more durable, for democracies are generally stable. Their leaders are constrained by constitutional rules, independent officials, and the political costs of abandoning public commitments. All this allows for solid bargains between democracies. When democracies contemplate breaking their agreements, their open debate gives partners advance notice and a chance to protect themselves. Hence agreements among democracies are less risky than those with nondemocratic states. Setting rigorous analysis in friendly, vigorous prose, Reliable Partners resolves longstanding questions about the democratic peace and highlights important new findings about democracies in world politics, from rivalries to alliances. Above all, it shows conclusively that democracies are uniquely adapted to seal enduring bargains with each other and thus avoid the blight of war.