Korea, South

In April 2023, the United States and South Korea marked the 70th anniversary of an alliance that has served the strategic interests of both countries. Their relationship has expanded beyond…

Building on last year’s “Rethinking Korea initiative,” in 2024 KEI will continue to explore the evolution of US-Korea relations, Korea’s place in the world, rapid changes in Korean society, and…

Despite being industrial powerhouses, Korea and Japan are both resource-poor nations with limited domestic sources of energy. Powering their economies required both to develop supply chains for fossil fuels, nuclear…

KEI is pleased to hold a program on Economic Security and U.S.-China Competition: The View From North Korea. One country is conspicuously missing from existing discussions about the dilemmas and…

By Mark Tokola Winston Churchill said, “To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.”  He was reported to have said this at a White House luncheon in 1954, so he by then had plenty of experience with both war and negotiation.  This sentiment, or something like it, is what people have in mind when they urge engagement…

By Mark Tokola, Phil Eskeland, Troy Stangarone, Jenna Gibson, Kyle Ferrier, and Juni Kim The Korean peninsula was dominated by unexpected events in 2016. North Korea began the year with a nuclear test that merely foreshadowed a year of significant advancements in its nuclear program rather than its traditional pattern of using tests to provoke…

“Previously, all the people used to sing the song We Are the Happiest in the World, feeling optimistic about the future with confidence in the great Comrades Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. I will work with devotion to ensure that the past era does not remain as a moment in history but is re-presented in the…

By Troy Stangarone In the Chinese zodiac, 2016 is the year of the Fire Monkey. Fire Monkeys are said to be ambitious and adventurous, as well as irritable. Despite Donald Trump’s not having been born in the year of the Monkey, looking back, his victory in the U.S. presidential election that year may yet seem…

Please join KEI and KIEP for a discussion about the first 10 years of KORUS and the future of the U.S.-Korea economic relationship.