Asia

South Korea is currently engaged, once again, in a large-scale, expensive modernization of its military that aims to provide the country with a more robust and self-sufficient defense. The timing…

Globalization is a hallmark of the twenty first-century world. As transportation and telecommunications grow in both efficiency and level of performance and as the ambit of the Internet expands, it…

The penetration of the Internet in Korean society is usually seen as a positive development, perhaps even a model for other countries; more efficient bureaucracy, more political figures making use…

In the field of international security, few connections have been made between the Korean peninsula with the Middle East. Traditional regional studies literature focuses on Korean issues within the Asia…

For many years, South Korea has been a homogeneous country. But with more foreigners coming to live in Korea, that is starting to change. In fact, the Korea Institute for…

In early July, the United States and South Korea announced that they had come to an agreement to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system near the city…

With Election 2016 well underway, KEI's very own Phil Eskeland has been closely following how both the Republican and Democratic parties have been talking about foreign policy and Asia. He…

In the late 1930s, nearly 200,000 ethnic Koreans were forcibly removed from the Soviet Far East, packed into trains and sent to Central Asia. More than 70 years later, their…

By Nicholas Hamisevicz After the disappointment of not getting a high-level meeting following the Incheon Asian Games agreement, it looked like inter-Korean relations would remain stalled until 2015. However, South Korea preempted North Korea’s traditional New Year’s Day announcement by requesting an inter-Korean meeting early in 2015. The request helped the  Park Geun-hye administration seize…

By Nicholas Hamisevicz  Dennis Rodman and Seth Rogen have made the same mistake on North Korea. Both have mistakenly viewed North Korea as a helpless entity. Rodman viewed North Korea as so helpless that all it needed was someone to talk to, play basketball with, and sing “Happy Birthday” to its leader. Rogen saw North…

By Troy Stangarone North Korea’s cyber attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment and the subsequent threats to target theaters that screened “The Interview” have had a chilling effect beyond Sony’s decision not to release it on Christmas day. The decision to withdraw “The Interview” from release has raised important questions regarding freedom of speech and how…

By Nicholas Hamisevicz As October faded away, the hopes for an early November high-level meeting as promised after an inter-Korean meeting during the closing of the Asian Games faded as well when North Korea informed South Korea via fax that it would not meet due to the balloons being sent by South Korean activists into…