Asia

Seoul has gradually adopted a more outspoken position regarding the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and framed it in increasingly expansive terms—as a regional and global…

The development of the concept of the Indo-Pacific strategy, since its adoption by the United States in 2017, has primarily been driven by the emergence of China as an object…

While the use of the term “Indo-Pacific” is relatively new, debates about its use echo longstanding arguments about how the region should be defined: who is in, who is out,…

Although it is happening more rapidly in South Korea, an aging society is a common feature in post-industrial societies around the world. With the number of retirees growing and the…

In March, Seoul suffered from the worst air pollution on record. Enough that the South Korean government has officially designated the problem as a "social disaster." But what is causing…

Over the past few years, Korea and Koreans have experienced incredible political, social, and diplomatic shifts. It is hard keeping up with all these new developments as a Korea Watcher,…

Even before the meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong-un in Hanoi, foreign policy practitioners and observers were talking about the difficulties of sequencing international sanctions relief for North Korea…

By Troy Stangarone In the aftermath of the recent tensions on the Korean peninsula some commentators have contended that South Korea is spinning the idea that North Korea apologized for maiming two South Korea soldiers when it didn’t directly claim responsibility for the act but merely expressed regret. An article in The Diplomat on this…

By Mark Tokola No one apart from the representatives of the North Korean and South Korean governments who took part in the marathon talks over the weekend of August 22 can know exactly what took place.  But there is some inevitable spin regarding who came away the “winner.”  North Korea says that it forced South…

By Troy Stangarone With the announcement of a deal shortly after midnight on August 25 the most recent inter-Korean crisis averted a military conflict on the Korean peninsula. Though the two sides reached a peaceful resolution, this is now the second significant inter-Korean crisis since Kim Jong-un came to power after the death of his…

By Jenna Gibson Tensions have been high on the Korean Peninsula over the past few weeks after a mine blast that maimed two South Korean soldiers set off a series of escalations from both sides of the DMZ. One of the moves from Seoul was restarting anti-North Korean broadcasts for the first time in 11…