North Korea and Nuclear Weapons: Entering the New Era of Deterrence by Sung Chull Kim and Michael D. Cohen
Washington, DC (PRWEB) April 21, 2017 -- "Kim and Cohen's volume on North Korea offers a 360 degree view of one of the most vexing problems for US foreign policy and national security. The authors each bring a unique analytic angle to the problem ranging from deterrence theory to the foreign policies of key protagonists like the United States, South Korea, and China. There is something here for both the expert and the general reader who want to make sense of this enigmatic regime and its increasingly risk-acceptant behavior."—Victor Cha, D.S. Song-Korea Foundation Professor of Government and International Affairs and Director of Asian Studies, Georgetown University.
North Korea is perilously close to developing strategic nuclear weapons capable of hitting the United States and its East Asian allies. Since their first nuclear test in 2006, North Korea has struggled to perfect the required delivery systems. Kim Jong-un's regime now appears to be close, however. Sung Chull Kim, Michael D. Cohen, and the volume contributors contend that the time to prevent North Korea from achieving this capability is virtually over; scholars and policymakers must turn their attention to how to deter a nuclear North Korea. The United States, South Korea, and Japan must also come to terms with the fact that North Korea will be able to deter them with its nuclear arsenal. How will the erratic Kim Jong-un behave when North Korea develops the capability to hit medium- and long-range targets with nuclear weapons? How will and should the United States, South Korea, Japan, and China respond, and what will this mean for regional stability in the short term and long term? The international group of authors in this volume address these questions and offer a timely analysis of the consequences of an operational North Korean nuclear capability for international security.
Sung Chull Kim is Humanities Korea Professor at the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies, Seoul National University. He is also editor of the Asian Journal of Peacebuilding and the author or editor of several books including North Korea under Kim Jong Il: From Consolidation to Systemic Dissonance.
Michael D. Cohen is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Security Studies and Criminology at Macquarie University. His research has been published or is forthcoming in journals such as The Journal of Global Security Studies, Foreign Policy Analysis, International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, Strategic Studies Quarterly, and The Non-Proliferation Review.
Jacqueline Beilhart, Georgetown University, http://press.georgetown.edu, +1 (202) 687-9298, [email protected]
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