Journal of International Studies

Editor's Note: In  a November 6, 2013 op-ed in  The Asan Forum , adapted from remarks delivered at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul on October 4, 2013, Robert Einhorn evaluates the future of nuclear cooperation in the U.S.–South Korean alliance. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES SPEECH  THE ASAN INSTITUTE OF POLICY STUDIES U.S.-ROK Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement: Overcoming the Impasse October 11, 2013 The US-ROK Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement: Overcoming the Impasse The United States and Republic of Korea have enjoyed a strong partnership for over 60 years, which has contributed to peace, security, and prosperity in the southern half of the peninsula. It is an impressive success story of which Koreans and Americans can be proud. A significant part of that success is cooperation in the civil uses of nuclear energy, which started out as a one-way street, with the United States, the senior partner, supplying the ROK with equipment and tec...

Is the South Korean Navy simply an expensive trifle? Last week, Kyle Mizokami  argued that the Republic of Korea Navy is “Impressive … and Pointless.”  Mizokami makes the nutshell case against South Korea’s  shift to the sea : "In the country’s rush to embrace its destiny as a seagoing nation, South Korea has prematurely shifted resources from defending against a hostile North Korea to defeating exaggerated sea-based threats from abroad. Seoul is in the midst of a strategic shift that has shorted defenses against the North and put its forces in harm’s way." There’s no doubt something to this argument.  The largest ships of the ROKN can, in context of the current state of disengagement between North and South Korea, look like little more than floating targets. South Korea treated the sinking of the Cheonan with admirable restraint.  Imagine, however, if an over-excited North Korean sub skipper decided to try to torpedo Dokdo or Seojong the Great?...

The ripple effects and knock-on effects of Washington’s recent dysfunction continue to flow out across the world. Damage wrought by the shutdown and debt ceiling brinkmanship have had a significant impact on the U.S. economy, although it is still not clear just how significant. Hence, fears of the Fed’s taper are now very much put on hold, even with both Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen both seeming to be in favour of reducing the quantitative easing program.  The  withdrawal of funds from emerging markets , a feature of the taper-fearing global financial landscape that persisted until the Fed’s recent surprise delay, has thus gone into reverse. Not surprisingly, funds are not simply returning to whence they came, but trying to pick the places that seemed less naked during the recent volatility. One such destination seems to be the  South Korean won , a currency that has seen its value measured in U.S. dollars jump over the past few months. In fact, on Thursday the...

Ten years after the Six-Party Talks on North Korea’s nuclear program were established and eight years after North Korea pledged to abandon its nuclear weapons program, rejoin the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and allow the reentry of IAEA monitors in the September 19, 2005, joint statement, Pyongyang remains intransigent and intent on bolstering its capabilities. China is pushing for the resumption of the talks to ease mounting regional tensions, yet North Korean officials are only willing to return to the table if Pyongyang is not bound by preconditions. The United States and South Korea are unwilling to reconvene talks before North Korea takes concrete steps that demonstrate its seriousness about denuclearization. In this Q&A, Paul Haenle says that ideally, the parties will be able to return to the Six-Party Talks framework one day with all countries genuinely working toward the central goal of North Korea’s denuclearization. But the prospect of that ha...