North Korea
For decades, North Korea’s provocative behavior and pursuit of nuclear weapons have threatened peace and stability in Northeast Asia. Various strategies to address the problem have delayed, but not ended, North Korea’s nuclear program. In the face of international condemnation, North Korea’s insistence on keeping its nuclear weapons has led to a diplomatic stalemate and the need for creative solutions to prevent a crisis. The U.S. Institute of Peace has supported efforts to strengthen peace and stability and prevent crisis on the Korean Peninsula. USIP collaborates with U.S. and regional experts, government officials, and diplomats to lead dialogues and conduct research exploring strategies for enhancing diplomacy, avoiding conflict, and managing crises related to North Korea.
Learn more in USIP’s fact sheet on The Current Situation in North Korea.
Featured Publications
Three Conditions for Successful Engagement with North Korea
The September 13, 2023, meeting between Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un in Russia’s Amur Oblast marked a significant crippling of the decades-long U.S. pressure-based approach toward North Korea. The strategy of isolating and pressuring North Korea through United Nations Security Council resolutions to compel its nuclear disarmament in exchange for providing normalized relations, economic aid and sanctions relief may or may not ever have been a winning strategy, but now is no longer viable. The strategy required cooperation among the United States, South Korea, China and Russia, but this now seems a distant prospect.
Building Trust through Health Cooperation with North Korea
The United States needs to address the existing trust deficit with North Korea if it wants to coexist peacefully with that country. Trust building through health cooperation may be the least contentious way politically and the most likely to succeed. However, engagement on health and humanitarian assistance with North Korea, like security negotiations, has been undermined by geopolitics.
Climate Change as a Path to Engagement with North Korea
Since North Korea broke off talks with the United States after their 2019 meeting in Stockholm, progress in engaging Pyongyang on its nuclear weapons and other issues has stalled. The pandemic likely played a significant role in cooling engagement, but Pyongyang’s growing relationship with Russia has further reduced its incentives to engage with the United States.
Current Projects
Pursuing Peaceful Coexistence with North Korea: An Essay Series
This ongoing USIP essays series explores how the countries involved in the Korean Peninsula can tangibly and realistically reduce risks and improve relations within a reality where North Korea possesses nuclear weapons and will not denuclearize in the foreseeable future. In other words, how can the United States and South Korea peacefully coexist with a nuclear North Korea?