North Korea’s fourth test of a nuclear device on February 6 and its rocket launch four weeks later in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions have caused a new sense of crisis on the Korean Peninsula. As if the tests themselves weren’t sufficiently provocative, Pyongyang is now claiming to have a hydrogen bomb and is threatening, if challenged, to launch a nuclear attack on both the United States and its ally South Korea. Whatever the exact state of North Korea’s capabilities, the tests underlined two basic facts: Pyongyang’s apparent determination to continue its efforts until it can indeed one day credibly threaten the United States with nuclear attack, and the international community’s resolve never to accept North Korea as a nuclear weapons state.
The international community responded with unprecedentedly tough sanctions against Pyongyang. On March 2, the UN Security Council passed
Resolution 2270. It targets the hard currency that Pyongyang desperately needs to realize its
byeongjin strategy of simultaneously trying to grow its economy and continuing nuclear weapons development. In addition, a number of countries, including the United States and Japan, introduced their own new bilateral sanctions. Perhaps most dramatically, South Korea on February 10 effectively permanently closed its decade-long joint North-South industrial park in the city of Kaesong in North Korea. It was the last project putting significant amounts of South Korean cash into the hands of the North Korean leadership.
North Korea’s response to the international community has included issuing even more threats, testing a series of new missiles, and sentencing an American college student to fifteen years’ imprisonment, allegedly for trying to filch a propaganda poster.
To help make sense of the new North Korea crisis, please stay tuned to this page for Korea Program Associate Director David Straub’s analysis and commentary. Straub is a former senior American diplomat whose thirty-year career focused on Korean affairs. His experiences include participation in the Six Party Talks and accompanying former President Clinton to Pyongyang in 2009 for a meeting with then-leader Kim Jong Il.
Latest Commentaries
In an interview with
Radio Free Asia, Straub discusses the background and implications of the recent defections to South Korea of workers in North Korea's restaurants in China.
In a recent public lecture at Stanford, Straub explains why the critics of the Obama administration are wrong, and forecasts how the next U.S. administration is likely to approach the North Korea problem.
Straub tells
NK News, a subscription-based website for the North Korea expert community, that the United States government may eventually have to further discourage or even ban American tourism to North Korea to protect citizens from arbitrary incarceration and prevent Pyongyang from blackmailing Washington for their release.
In an interview with the
University of Virgina's student newspaper, Straub discusses North Korea's imprisonment of UV student Otto Warmbier for allegedly attempting to steal a poster inscribed with the slogan "Let's firmly arm ourselves with Kim Jong-il patriotism!” Straub explains how the alleged offense fits in with the cult of personality surrounding the Kim Il Sung family dynasty.
Overall Situation
In an interview with
South Korean newspaper Segye Ilbo (in Korean) immediately following North Korea’s latest nuclear test, Straub argued that South Korea had the stature and ability to lead the international community in imposing greater costs on North Korea. His recommendations included considering closing the Kaesong industrial park.
Straub told the Washington Post that calls by some South Koreans for their country to develop its own nuclear weapons to counter the North were mostly a media phenomenon. Responsible South Korean leaders know that pursuing nuclear weapons would be disastrous for their country.
Sanctions
Straub told
Voice of America’s Korea Service (in Korean) that the new UN Security Council sanctions reflected years of preparation by the Obama administration and would significantly increase the psychological pressure on North Korea’s leaders to abandon their pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Kaesong Closure
In an interview
featured on the front page of Chosun Ilbo (in Korean), South Korea’s biggest newspaper, Straub supported South Korean President Park’s controversial decision to close the Kaesong industrial park in North Korea.
Peace Treaty Proposals
Straub told
Associated Press that North Korea’s proposal for a peace treaty with the United States was a non-starter in Washington as long as Pyongyang continued to pursue nuclear weapons.
North Korea’s Incarceration of American Citizens
In the wake of North Korea's sentencing of University of Virginia student Otto Frederick Warmbier to fifteen years' imprisonment of hard labor for allegedly trying to steal a propaganda poster, Straub talked with a reporter from the
University of Virginia's student newspaper about the case. Straub draws on his experience of leading the office of Korean affairs at the U.S. Department of State to discuss the conditions faced by Americans incarcerated in North Korea as well as North Korean intentions.
