Publications
Articles, publications, books, tools and multimedia features from the U.S. Institute of Peace provide the latest news, analysis, research findings, practitioner guides and reports, all related to the conflict zones and issues that are at the center of the Institute’s work to prevent and reduce violent conflict.
North Korea Poses Old Challenges to New U.S. Administration
Just a week before President Biden was inaugurated, North Korea provided a reminder that it would continue to pose challenges to Washington—but left the door open for renewed engagement. During Pyongyang’s eighth Party Congress, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was surprisingly candid about his country’s economic struggles. He also followed a familiar refrain, emphasizing the importance of strengthening North Korea’s military capabilities and calling Washington enemy number one. The Biden administration will come into office facing the same situation with North Korea that has bedeviled Washington for decades.
What to Expect from the Trilateral Summit with Japan and South Korea
After months of steadily increasing diplomatic exchanges — and a historic thaw in tensions between South Korea and Japan — President Joe Biden will host Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol at Camp David for a trilateral summit on August 18. The three leaders have previously met on the sidelines of larger multilateral forums, such as last year’s NATO summit, but the Camp David meeting marks the first standalone leader-level summit between the three countries.
Austin, Blinken Affirm U.S. Commitment to Asian Allies
U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin are in Asia this week for their first official foreign trip. They held meetings in Japan and South Korea. Blinken returned to the United States via Alaska where he and U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan meet with their Chinese counterparts today, while Austin is in India. On March 12, President Joe Biden and the leaders of Australia, India and Japan participated in a virtual summit of the “Quad,” a strategic dialogue between the four countries aimed at ensuring an open, free and prosperous Indo-Pacific region.
Will the ‘Washington Declaration’ Deter North Korea?
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol is in Washington this week as the United States and South Korea celebrate 70 years of bilateral ties. Yoon’s visit is only the second state visit hosted by the Biden administration and the first South Korean state visit in 12 years. While there have been some recent strains in the relationship over U.S. trade and semiconductor policy and Seoul’s support for Ukraine, the focus of the bilateral summit was on the threat posed by North Korea. Although the summit ostensibly achieved both sides’ desired security deliverables related to deterrence, reassurance and nonproliferation, these outcomes will likely not provide enduring solutions to the North Korea challenge.
On to Vietnam: What Will Happen at the Second Trump-Kim Summit?
At the State of the Union address this week, President Trump announced that he will again meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the end of February in Vietnam for their second face-to-face negotiations. The president’s announcement follows recent comments from U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun indicating that the U.S. is prepared to negotiate on both denuclearization and peace simultaneously—an approach that the Trump and former administrations previously eschewed. USIP’s North Korea and China experts examine the potential shift in U.S. policy and what concerns key regional players have over the next summit.
Biden’s Asia Trip Seeks to Revitalize Alliances, Focus on China
President Biden made his first trip to East Asia beginning late last week, visiting South Korea and Japan, where he participated in a leader’s summit of the so-called Quad, which includes Australia, Japan and India. The president’s visit is part of a flurry of Asia-focused diplomatic initiatives in recent weeks including the U.S.-ASEAN summit, the U.S.-India 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue and an upcoming speech from Secretary of State Blinken, which is expected to lay out the contours of the administration’s China Policy.
South Korea and Japan Need to Reset Relations. Can the United States Help?
In April 2022, a South Korean delegation representing President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol met with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo to help reset bilateral ties that have frayed in recent years over unresolved issues like wartime forced labor and sexual slavery. The delegation head told reporters that the trip’s goal was to fasten “the first button of a new Korea-Japan relationship,” referring to the proverb that incorrectly fastening the first button on a jacket will cause subsequent ones to go astray.
Four Ideas for a More Practical Approach to North Korea
A significant impediment for the United States is that it continues to narrowly limit its policy options while North Korean capabilities expand unabated. Washington’s window of discourse on North Korea policy largely consists of: Pressure the Kim regime through sanctions; don’t legitimize or reward it until preconditions are met; and don’t make any concessions until the North takes significant denuclearization measures first. To achieve any sustained results, these policy boundaries must be substantially widened to include more realistic and practical measures. We, along with our colleagues at USIP, explored many of these issues in a recent report, “A Peace Regime for the Korean Peninsula.”
Nuclear Diplomacy with North Korea: What’s Ahead for the Biden Administration?
The Biden administration faces a situation with North Korea similar to what President Obama faced in 2009, with U.S.-DPRK engagement on its last legs. Obama appeared interested in reviving the Six Party Talks, but slow outreach to North Korea allowed Pyongyang to seize the narrative by conducting a satellite launch in April and a nuclear test in May, which doomed engagement for an extended period. Biden will face a similar decision about how to engage North Korea, including whether to move forward with joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises in March, and whether to reaffirm the outcomes of the 2018 joint U.S.-DPRK Singapore Statement, which Pyongyang has yet to renounce but is on life support.
Why Peace Games? Insights from East Asia
These days, Washington seems to be awash in war games, especially China-related ones. Yet, despite the dangers posed by a great power conflict, there are shockingly few peace games happening inside the Beltway outside the auspices of our home institution, the U.S. Institute of Peace.