Joint U.S. Korea Academic Studies
From the Issue
Joint U.S.-Korea Academic Studies 2011About Joint U.S. Korea Academic Studies
For over twenty years, KEI has sponsored annual major academic symposiums at universities across the country and major academic conferences. Each year, papers are specially commissioned to fit panel topics of current policy relevance to the U.S.-ROK alliance and implications for the Korean peninsula. Following the symposium, KEI edits and publishes those papers in an annual volume entitled “Joint U.S.-Korea Academic Studies.”
Author: Stephen Blank
Region: Asia
Theme: Security
Location: Korea, North, Korea, South, Russian Federation
Published February 15, 2012
Download PDFThe stagnation of the six-party process has produced great anxiety in Russia over the future of the Korean peninsula. Indeed, in September 2010, even before the attack on Yeonpyeong and the announcement of a uranium enrichment facility, Moscow’s representative to the six-party talks stated that Korea was on the brink of war. This anxiety reflects that perhaps Russia, of the external non-Korean members of the six-party process, has the most to lose. Russia lacks leverage on any other power and confronts the danger of marginalization. War would only aggravate all its concerns and derail any hope of developing the Russian Far East, a development that is the precondition for an effective Russian presence in Asia. For these reasons Russia, perhaps more than any other country, shows the greatest anxiety about the developing trends on the Korean peninsula.