Preventing North Korea's nuclear breakout / Robert S. Litwak

By: Contributor(s): Language: English Publication details: Washington, DC : Wilson Center, 2017Description: viii, 111 pages color photographsISBN:
  • 9781938027642
  • 1938027647
Subject(s): Online resources:
Contents:
Executive summary. -- Introduction. -- U.S. policy evolution. -- The North Korean domestic context. -- Nuclear capabilities and intentions. -- The case for coercive engagement. -- Endnotes.
Summary: North Korea is on the verge of a strategic breakout that directly threatens the U.S. homeland. The United States now faces its third nuclear crisis with North Korea in 25 years. Basically, to prevent a North Korean nuclear breakout, the Trump administration has two options: a preventive military strike on North Korea's nuclear and missile infrastructure to destroy its capability to threaten the United States; or a revitalized diplomatic track to deny North Korea a breakout capability by negotiating a freeze of its nuclear and missile programs. In rejecting the use of military power, this study argues for a pivot to serious diplomacy through a strategy of coercive engagement. A new conjunction of factors creates an opportunity to achieve a freeze agreement—one that, in the near term, optimizes the interests among all the major parties. Such an interim agreement would forestall a North Korean nuclear breakout and reaffirm the goal of long-term denuclearization (the urgent U.S. interest), while preventing the collapse of the North Korean regime and the loss of a buffer state (the Chinese interest) and leaving the Kim family regime in power with a minimum nuclear deterrent (the paramount North Korean interest). This analytical option should be put to the political test through revitalized diplomacy.
Item type: monograph
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Holdings
Current library Call number Status Date due Barcode
SIPRI Library and Documentation (519.3) Litwak Available G18/118

SIP1810

"February 2017."

Includes bibliographical references (pages 96-111).

Executive summary. -- Introduction. -- U.S. policy evolution. -- The North Korean domestic context. -- Nuclear capabilities and intentions. -- The case for coercive engagement. -- Endnotes.

North Korea is on the verge of a strategic breakout that directly threatens the U.S. homeland. The United States now faces its third nuclear crisis with North Korea in 25 years. Basically, to prevent a North Korean nuclear breakout, the Trump administration has two options: a preventive military strike on North Korea's nuclear and missile infrastructure to destroy its capability to threaten the United States; or a revitalized diplomatic track to deny North Korea a breakout capability by negotiating a freeze of its nuclear and missile programs. In rejecting the use of military power, this study argues for a pivot to serious diplomacy through a strategy of coercive engagement. A new conjunction of factors creates an opportunity to achieve a freeze agreement—one that, in the near term, optimizes the interests among all the major parties. Such an interim agreement would forestall a North Korean nuclear breakout and reaffirm the goal of long-term denuclearization (the urgent U.S. interest), while preventing the collapse of the North Korean regime and the loss of a buffer state (the Chinese interest) and leaving the Kim family regime in power with a minimum nuclear deterrent (the paramount North Korean interest). This analytical option should be put to the political test through revitalized diplomacy.

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