This Task Force report comprehensively reviews the situation on the peninsula as well as the options for U.S. policy. It provides a valuable ranking of U.S. interests, and calls for a firm commitment from the Obama administration to seek denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, backed by a combination of sanctions, incentives, and sustained political pressure, in addition to increased efforts to contain proliferation. It notes that China's participation in this effort is vital. Indeed, the report makes clear that any hope of North Korea's dismantling its nuclear program rests on China's willingness to take a strong stance. For denuclearization to proceed, China must acknowledge that the long-term hazard of a nuclear Korea is more perilous to it and the region than the short-term risk of instability. The report also recognizes that robust relations between Washington and its allies in the region, Japan and South Korea, must underpin any efforts to deal with the North Korean problem. It looks as well at regime change and scenarios that could lead to reunification of the peninsula. At the same time that the Task Force emphasizes the danger and urgency of North Korea's behavior, it recognizes and applauds the beneficial U.S. relationship with South Korea, which has proved to be a valuable economic and strategic partner. In this vein, the Task Force advocates continued close coordination with Seoul and urges prompt congressional passage of the U.S.-South Korea free trade agreement.

The Korean peninsula, divided for more than fifty years, is stuck in a time warp. Millions of troops face one another along the Demilitarized Zone separating communist North Korea and capitalist South Korea. In the early 1990s and again in 2002-2003, the United States and its allies have gone to the brink of war with North Korea. Misinterpretations and misunderstandings are fueling the crisis. "There is no country of comparable significance concerning which so many people are ignorant," American anthropologist Cornelius Osgood said of Korea some time ago. This ignorance may soon have fatal consequences. North Korea, South Korea is a short, accessible book about the history and political complexites of the Korean peninsula, one that explores practical alternatives to the current US policy: alternatives that build on the remarkable and historic path of reconciliation that North and South embarked on in the 1990s and that point the way to eventual reunification.

The Korean Peninsula was and is in a state of flux.More than 60 years after the war that left the country divided, the policies and unpredictability of the North Korean regime, in conjunction with the U.S. alliance with South Korea and the involvement of China in the area, leave the situation there one of the most capricious on the globe. Confronting Security Challenges on the Korean Peninsula presents the opinions from experts on the subject matter from the policy, military, and academic communities. Drawn from talks at a conference in September 2010 at Marine Corps University, the papers explore the enduring security challenges, the state of existing political and military relationships, the economic implications of unification, and the human rights concerns within North and South Korea. They also reiterate the importance for the broader East Asia region of peaceful resolution of the Korean issues.

"Korean unification is one of the most important issues on the international agenda today. Hart-Landsberg's broad-ranging inquiry develops a perspective that is rarely heard, and that merits careful attention. It is a valuable contribution to a debate that should not be delayed." --Noam Chomsky

This report, sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, was done by an Independent Task Force on Managing Change on the Korean Peninsula. Noting that the new Republic of Korea government has taken steps to open North Korea to broader contacts with the outside world while asserting that it will brook no military aggression from the North, the Task Force recommends a parallel and supportive approach for U.S. policy.

In A Troubled Peace, Professor Chae-Jin Lee reviews the vicissitudes of U.S. policy toward South and North Korea since 1948 when rival regimes were installed on the Korean peninsula. He explains the continuously changing nature of U.S.-Korea relations by discussing the goals the United States has sought for Korea, the ways in which these goals have been articulated, and the methods used to implement them. Using a careful analysis of declassified diplomatic documents, primary materials in English, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese, and extensive interviews with American and Korean officials, Lee draws attention to a number of factors that have affected U.S. policy: the functions of U.S. security policy in Korea, the role of the United States in South Korea's political democratization, President Clinton's policy of constructive engagement toward North Korea, President Bush's hegemonic policy toward North Korea, and the hexagonal linkages among the United States, China, Japan, Russia, and the two Koreas. Drawing on concepts of containment, deterrence, engagement, preemption, and appeasement, Lee's balanced and thoughtful approach reveals the frustrations of all players in their attempts to arrive at a modicum of coexistence. His objective, comprehensive, and definitive study reveals a dynamic—and incredibly complex—series of relationships underpinning a troubled and tenuous peace.

North Korea has presented one of the most vexing and persistent problems in U.S. foreign policy in the post-Cold War period. The United States has never had formal diplomatic relations with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (the official name for North Korea), although contact at a lower level has ebbed and flowed over the years. Negotiations over North Korea's nuclear weapons program have occupied the past three U.S. administrations, even as some analysts anticipated a collapse of the isolated authoritarian regime. North Korea has been the recipient of over $1 billion in U.S. aid (though none since 2009) and the target of dozens of U.S. sanctions.

North Korea is consistently identified as one of the world’s worst human rights abusers. However, the issue of human rights in North Korea is a complex one, intertwined with issues like life in the North Korean police state, inter-Korean relations, denuclearization, access to information in the North, and international cooperation, to name a few. There are likewise multiple actors involved, including the two Korean governments, the United States, the United Nations, South Korea NGOs, and global human rights organizations. While North Korea’s nuclear weapons and the security threat it poses have occupied the center stage and eclipsed other issues in recent years, human rights remain important to U.S. policy. The contributors to The North Korean Conundrum explore how dealing with the issue of human rights is shaped and affected by the political issues with which it is so entwined. Sections discuss the role of the United Nations; how North Koreans’ limited access to information is part of the problem, and how this is changing; the relationship between human rights and denuclearization; and North Korean human rights in comparative perspective.

"In describing their comprehensive proposal for negotiations with North Korea, O'Hanlon and Mochizuki exhibit the strategic creativity and analytical depth badly needed by United States policy makers dealing with this strange, dangerous place." --Ash Carter, former Assistant Secretary of Defense and Ford Foundation Professor of Science and International Affairs, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University IN EARLY 2002, in his fateful state of the union address, President Bush described North Korea as being a member of the "Axis of Evil." Since then, the U.S. has gone to war with Iraq, and the world now wonders what the future of Bush's preemption policy will bring. Many of the nation's top experts feel that North Korea is a more imminent threat than Saddam's Iraq was. They have a nuclear program, a million-man army, and missiles to deploy and export. In Crisis on the Korean Peninsula, Michael O'Hanlon, a Senior Fellow at Brooking and visiting lecturer at Princeton, and Mike Mochizuki, endowed chair in Japan-US Relations at G.W. University, not only examine this issue in detail but also offer a comprehensive blueprint for diffusing the crisis with North Korea. Their solution comes in the form of a "grand bargain" with North Korea. Accords could be negotiated step-by-step, however they need to be guided by a broad and ambitious vision that addresses not only the nuclear issue but also the conventional forces on the hyper-militarized peninsula and the ongoing decline of the North Korean economy.

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.