By Scott Snyder

Scott Snyder directs The Asia Foundation’s Center for U.S.-Korea Policy. He recently presented a paper at a conference called “Nuclear Politics, North Korea and the Political Economy of Northeast Asia in the Wake of the World Economic Crisis” at the University of Washington. Download the paper here. Also, an English-language version of Scott’s blog piece “Is North Korea Playing a New Game?” first posted on Chosun Ilbo, is featured on GlobalSecurity. He can be reached at ssnyder@asiafound.org.

North Korea’s nuclear aspirations have served as the driving force for the development of ad hoc security multilateralism in Northeast Asia. This development has occurred in stages, with each successive phase in responding to the North Korean crisis resulting in strengthened regional cooperation, despite persisting underlying strategic mistrust among the parties. This presentation will briefly evaluate the significance and contributions of three stages in the development of ad hoc security multilateralism in Northeast Asia: KEDO, the Four-Party Talks/establishment of the Trilateral Coordination and Oversight Group (TCOG), and the Six Party Talks. Then, the author will offer a critical evaluation of prospects for Six Party Talks and analyze whether the six party process might develop into a permanent feature of the security architecture in Northeast Asia or whether a fourth stage might be necessary to achieve a lasting security framework for the region. The author will also evaluate the extent to which the North Korean nuclear issue and the U.S.-led bilateral alliance system, respectively, may be both a catalyst and an obstacle to the establishment of an effective Northeast Asian regional security framework.

Read the full paper.

By Scott Snyder

Scott Snyder directs The Asia Foundation’s Center for U.S.-Korea Policy. Below are excerpts from his June 17, 2009, testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and the Global Environment Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade. The transcript of his full testimony is posted on our website. He can be reached at ssnyder@asiafound-dc.org.

Snyder on The Six Party Process: A Regional Framework for North Korea’s Denuclearization: “North Korea’s unilateral pursuit of nuclear weapons capabilities over the last two decades has ironically been a primary catalyst for strengthened regional cooperation in Northeast Asia. But this cooperation has thus far been insufficient to deter North Korea’s nuclear development given the existence of longstanding regional security cleavages. … No single actor, including the United States, can meet this challenge without cooperation and collective action from North Korea’s neighbors. But the concerned parties most directly affected by North Korea’s destabilizing actions have been least willing to challenge or block North Korea’s nuclear development.”
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By Scott Snyder

Scott Snyder directs The Asia Foundation’s Center for U.S.-Korea Policy. His latest book, “China’s Rise and the Two Koreas: Politics, Economics, Security,” was published by Lynne Rienner earlier this year. He can be reached at ssnyder@asiafound-dc.org.

North Korea did exactly what it said it would do on May 25, 2009, when it conducted a nuclear test as promised in its April 28 statement in response to UN sanctions imposed on three North Korean firms in accordance with an April 13 UN Security Council Presidential Statement condemning North Korea’s April 5, 2009, missile test. The test furthers North Korea’s strategic objective of making permanent its status as a nuclear weapons state. North Korea’s announcement of the test shows that a primary political target of North Korea’s nuclear test is domestic, as was the case with North Korea’s April 5th missile launch.
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By Scott Snyder

Scott Snyder directs The Asia Foundation’s Center for U.S.-Korea Policy and is an Adjunct Senior Fellow for Korean Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. His latest book, “China’s Rise and the Two Koreas: Politics, Economics, Security,” was published by Lynne Rienner earlier this year. He can be reached at ssnyder@asiafound-dc.org. Scott Snyder will discuss his book at a Pacific Council on International Policy program May 15 in San Francisco. To attend this event, contact Heather MacClelland.

Within hours following an April 14, 2009, United Nations Security Council presidential statement condemning North Korea’s missile launch, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) foreign ministry responded by stating that “six-party talks have lost the meaning of their existence, never to recover,” and that the “DPRK will never participate in such six-party talks, nor will it be bound any longer to any agreement of the talks.”
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By Scott Snyder

Scott Snyder directs The Asia Foundation’s Center for U.S.-Korea Policy. His latest book, “China’s Rise and the Two Koreas: Politics, Economics, Security,” was published by Lynne Rienner earlier this year. He can be reached at ssnyder@asiafound-dc.org.

The Obama administration was a political target of North Korea’s April 5, 2009, missile test in addition to the targets of internal political consolidation, exploiting China’s DPRK dilemma, and the exploitation of possible divisions within the UN Security Council.

North Korea’s strategic objective has been to secure its position as a nuclear weapons state. In a statement released immediately prior to President Obama’s inauguration, the DPRK Foreign Ministry declared that normalization and the nuclear issue are “two separate matters” and that “the DPRK’s status as a nuclear weapons state will remain unchanged.” Pyongyang’s tactical objective has been to shape the field for bilateral negotiations with the United States on terms favorable to the DPRK by controlling the agenda and terms of interaction. Crisis escalation tactics and brinkmanship are tried and true negotiating tactics that from a North Korean perspective have never failed to deliver. The challenge for the Obama administration is whether it will be possible to break this pattern and to establish a dynamic of interaction with the North on its own terms.
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By Scott Snyder

Scott Snyder is The Asia Foundation’s Senior Associate and Director of the Center for U.S.-Korea Policy. He recently provided analysis on the UN Security Council Presidential Statement in an op-ed on Globalsecurity.org. He can be reached at ssnyder@asiafound-dc.org.

North Korea’s efforts to exploit divisions among members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in its response to its April 5, 2009 test of a multi-stage rocket has proven to be a slightly harder political target than some in Pyongyang may have anticipated…read more.

By Edward Reed

Edward Reed is The Asia Foundation’s Country Representative in Korea. He can be reached at ereed@tafko.or.kr.

Notwithstanding media images of demonstrators in Seoul angrily denouncing North Korea’s launch of a long-range rocket, the reaction among the general public in South Korea has been generally calm. The demonstrators in Seoul numbered in the hundreds (in a country where ten thousand is a modest turnout) and mostly represented small far-right groups. This is not to say that people are not worried. It’s just that, for South Koreans, this is only one more chapter in a very long saga with many crises, many ups and downs.

A survey by the Unification Advisory Council, taken just before the rocket test, indicated growing unease about rising tensions between South and North, a trend that started with the inauguration of President Lee Myung-bak a little over a year ago. President Lee’s more conditional approach to inter-Korean relations, particularly with regard to provision of aid, brought a sharp rebuke from Pyongyang. Last summer’s shooting of a South Korean woman tourist who strayed outside a tourist enclave in the North by a North Korean soldier was a shock to South Koreans. More recently the North has put the squeeze on the joint industrial complex at Kaesong, just inside the North, where some 39,000 North Koreans are employed by 100 South Korean companies. The rocket test can only add to a further rise in the tension level.
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By Scott Snyder

Scott Snyder is a Senior Associate at The Asia Foundation and Director of the Center for U.S.-Korea Policy. Snyder first posted this piece in Globalsecurity.org. He can be reached at ssnyder@asiafound-dc.org. For more analysis on North Korea, read the Center for U.S.-Korea Policy’s newsletter.

North Korea’s launch of a multi-stage rocket has been assessed by international experts as a technical failure, but the test has been at least a partial success in hitting four political targets: North Korea’s domestic audience, exploitation of international divisions among members of the six party talks, testing of the newly-established Obama administration, and exploitation of Chinese dilemmas over how to balance multiple conflicting objectives in its North Korea policy.

Target #1: The “Song of General Kim Jong Il” Plays in North Korea
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By Lee Hong-koo

Lee Hong-koo is former Prime Minister of the Republic of Korea (1994-1995), a member of  The Asia Foundation’s Board of Trustees, and Chairman of Friends of The Asia Foundation/Korea.

History will record November 2008 as the crucial turning point for launching a new global order. No one knows what would exactly be the form of that order, but everyone seems to be in agreement that the existing international order cannot be sustained in light of two stunning developments. First, troubles in the U.S. financial market ignited a global economic crisis of historic magnitude. Second, the election of Barack Obama offered the United States a fresh opportunity to rejuvenate her status as the pre-eminent global leader in shaping a new international order.

These two developments within the United States have given the world cause for both despair and hope. The current economic crisis is so serious that there seems to be no promising way to overcome it in the foreseeable future. Thus it is a cause for despair. Yet President Obama is enjoying widespread support at home and abroad as a leader – perhaps the only leader – who could and should mobilize a global consensus to transform the international order in both economic and political spheres, and thereby put the world back on the path of global development.
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By Scott Snyder

Scott Snyder is Director of the Asia Foundation’s Center for U.S.-Korea Policy and an Adjunct Senior Fellow for Korean Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. The opinions expressed are his personal views. He can be reached at ssnyder@asiafound-dc.org.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives in Seoul today on her first visit to South Korea in her new post. South Koreans have anticipated her arrival—and the establishment of the Obama administration’s policy toward the Korean peninsula—with a mixture of anxiety and anticipation. This mood has been fed by a rapid deterioration in inter-Korean relations, increasingly strident North Korean military threats toward the South, and preparations to launch a long-range missile. The agenda for the visit is broad—suggesting that the U.S.-ROK alliance is now positioned to make contributions beyond the peninsula—but the core preoccupation will remain how to deal with North Korea.
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