United States of America

U.S. President Obama and South Korean President Lee held their third summit meeting on November 19 in Seoul. Thousands of Koreans lined the streets of downtown Seoul to welcome Obama…

U.S. citizens from many walks of life had the unusual opportunity in early September to hear from and interact with the two ambassadors responsible for maintaining the critical U.S.-Korea relationship.…

For the first time in a decade the leaders of the United States and Korea held an amiable summit meeting. The meetings between presidents Clinton and Kim Dae-jung were cordial,…

They Did What?! On the morning of May 25, after giving the U.S. government one hour’s notice, North Korea detonated a nuclear device underground at the same northeast site of…

By Mark Tokola The American foreign policy community—official and unofficial—is impatient with the current dispute between South Korea and Japan, which began as a trade dispute but has now broadened with Korea’s cancellation of an intelligence-sharing agreement, the GSOMIA (General Security of Military Information Agreement).  South Korea and Japan are U.S. allies, both face common…

By Mark Tokola Paul-Henri Spaak, the post-war Belgian statesman who served both as one of the founders of the European Union and as Secretary-General of NATO, wrote in his memoirs that “one must also desire the consequences of what one desires.”  In other words, you shouldn’t complain about the foreseeable outcomes of your actions.  One…

This briefing comes from Korea View, a weekly newsletter published by the Korea Economic Institute. Korea View aims to cover developments that reveal trends on the Korean Peninsula but receive little attention in the United States. If you would like to sign up, please find the online form here. What Happened A petition calling for the Korean government to ban the…

By Mark Tokola On Thursday, July 25, North Korea launched two, (reportedly) short-range, missiles into the sea west of Japanese waters. News reports say that they traveled to distances of 430 and 690 kilometers, and flew low, no higher than 50 kilometers in altitude. Some analysts believe that the projectiles were part of North Korea’s…

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