North Korea

If peace is to prevail in East Asia, Pyongyang must abandon its uranium enrichment programme and all aspects of its nuclear programme should be placed under international monitoring.

In response to increasing North Korean hostilities, South Korea’s Defence Minister Kim Kwan-jin unveiled a 73-point military reform measures in early March 2011

The temporary hope of peace returning to the Korean peninsula following North Korea’s peace overtures dissipated no sooner than it started when North Korean negotiators walked out of the meeting room at the DMZ in Panmunjam.

Gates has steered Japan and South Korea towards aligning their shared threat perceptions about North Korea and China.

North Korea’s offer of a dialogue is unlikely to elicit a positive response from South Korea which instead is militarily drawing closer to Japan to enhance deterrence.

Soon after naming the North Korean regime as its “enemy”, South Korea has, quite abruptly, invoked the desirability of reverting to the Six-Party Talks.

Kan’s statement about sending the SDF to the Korean peninsula to rescue Japanese citizens and people of Japanese origin in the event of an emergency has raised the spectre of a possible revival of Japanese militarism.

Both the revelation of a highly refined capacity for uranium enrichment and the shelling of South Korean military positions amply demonstrate Pyongyang’s preparedness to push the crisis to the extremes.

Because of America’s refusal to engage North Korea, by default the reclusive nation dictates the rules of engagement in its favour.

North Korea’s intent appears to be to entice South Korea and the United States into resuming nuclear negotiations and to test their resolve.