Korea, North

In 2023, KEI has set out on its “Rethinking Korea initiative,” which explores the evolution of U.S.-Korea relations, Korea’s place in the world, and rapid changes in Korean society itself.…

You’ve probably heard the Korean War referred to as an unfinished conflict – but that’s not just a reference to the frozen war on the Peninsula. The sudden outbreak of…

We often talk about whether the sanctions against North Korea are working. And we have spoken occasionally on this very podcast about the ways North Korea also cheats and gets…

North Korea is putting on a tough face as the world confronts the COVID-19 pandemic. Authorities in Pyongyang continue to reassure the rest of the world that nothing is wrong…

August 24 of this year marked the six-month anniversary of the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  In February, Moscow massed a hundred thousand troops along its border with Ukraine, all the while sanctimoniously proclaiming that it had no intention to invade. Expectations in Moscow were that Russia would quickly overthrow the government led by…

In May of this year, the United States introduced a draft UN Security Council Resolution (S/2022/431) that would have responded to a North Korean ICBM test on March 24. By chance, the formal Chinese and Russian rejection of the proposal—which included additional sanctions on Pyongyang--came in the wake of a landmark decision taken by the…

At the conclusion of the 50th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, the President of the Council named eight individuals to human rights related positions, including Elizabeth Salmón as the “Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea.”  Salmón is a professor of international…

In the last two posts on Korea and the war in Ukraine, I showed that Moon administration moved relatively quickly to join the international sanctions regime and was rewarded by inclusion on Russia’s  "unfriendly nations" list. I also argued that the costs of standing on international legal principle were softened by the fact that the…

Please join KEI for a discussion on North Korea’s potential incorporation of AI into its cyber arsenal.