Foreign Relations

As actors dwarfed in size by China and Japan, and reliant on a regional balance of power for security, Korea and ASEAN have parallel economic and security interests that can…

Security cooperation in East Asia lags behind other forms of regional coopera- tion. The relationship among China, Japan, and the United States—the most powerful security actors in the region—exemplifies this…

Despite an historic delay and continued opposition in some quarters, passage of the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) looks set to proceed quickly through the United States Congress. The…

For much of the past month, the world has sat transfixed as the Arab World has begun to transform before our eyes. Having started in Tunisia, the call for political…

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…

By Jenna Gibson According to at least one poll, South Korea has a higher opinion of the United States than the United States has of itself. In its 2015 Global Indicators survey, Pew Research Center found that 84 percent of South Koreans view the U.S. favorably, while only 83 percent of Americans said the same.[1]…