Foreign Relations

Achieving unification has been one of the most important national goals of all South Korean presidents. President Park is no exception, and clarifies that building a foundation for national unification…

This is the full PDF of the 2015 edition of Joint U.S.-Korea Academic Studies. Please click here to download the individual chapters included in this publication. At the Korea Economic…

For a variety of reasons, North Korea at times behaves in a provocative fashion. This chapter starts with a discussion of the concept of provocation and its nature. A careful…

When speaking to a Korean audience, the commander of U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) invariably inserts the Korean phrase katchi kapshida ( 같이 갑시다), “we go together,” at some point in…

By Troy Stangarone It has generally been acknowledged that the U.S.-Korea alliance is at an all time high. At a time of rising international challenges from the 2008 global financial crisis to enhanced efforts to secure nuclear materials, Korea has played an increasingly prominent role on the global stage and become a key partner for…

By Duyeon Kim The 2012 Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, Korea could have been a watershed moment for nuclear security. The 58 heads of state and world leaders were expected to implement nuclear security measures conceptualized by the Obama administration’s first Summit in Washington two years ago, and pivot toward a harmonized and coherent roadmap.…

By Nicholas Hamisevicz On the day before South Korean President Lee Myung-bak hosted numerous leaders and heads-of-state for the Nuclear Security Summit, he met bilaterally with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India to discuss enhancing the two countries strategic partnership. Looking to build on the intensity and frequency of the high-level meetings that followed President…

By Sarah K. Yun Immediately after the Leap Day Agreement between the U.S. and North Korea, people-to-people exchanges increased significantly with the Track II dialogues in New York and the North Korean orchestra Unhasu’s performance in Paris. However, North Korea recently announced its plan to launch a “satellite” which threatens future of the nutritional assistance…