Won Gon Park, the Chair of EAI North Korea Studies Center, explains that while there has been growing discussion about a potential "sudden change" in North Korea, fueled by an increase in elite defections and stricter party discipline, they do not signal an imminent regime collapse. Highlighting the limited scale and intensity of unrest among the e...

Ho Ryung Lee, Director of the Center for Security and Strategy at KIDA, explains that North Korea’s recent military actions are aimed at delineating the inter-Korean border, rather than introducing territorial amendments or removing “unification” from the constitution. Lee assesses that such decision is an effort to reinforce the border while...

Ken Jimbo, president of the Asia Pacific Initiative (API), forecasts that Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru's foreign policy will likely follow the trajectory set by his predecessors, particularly in maintaining the U.S.-Japan alliance and fostering improved relations with South Korea. Jimbo notes that Ishiba’s leadership rests on a weak fou...

Won Gon Park, the Chair of EAI North Korea Studies Center, contends that North Korea is using a divide-and-conquer strategy between South Korea and the U.S. by revealing its uranium enrichment facilities, increasing direct threat to South Korea while avoiding test launches of missiles that could strike the U.S. mainland. He suggests that by exposin...

Professor Leif-Eric Easley and Sunwoo Kim from Ewha Womans University examine how North Korea's norm-violating actions -- including missile tests, cyberattacks, and sanctions evasion -- have catalyzed U.S.-ROK-Japan trilateralism. Trilateral cooperation is expanding on cyber and intelligence, economic security, and human rights. These policies have...

Dong Ryul Lee, Chair of the EAI China Research Center, asserts that although China generally follows a restrained approach aimed at maintaining regional stability in Northeast Asia, it adopts a more proactive stance when it perceives an imminent crisis in the DPRK regime or a significant decline in its influence on the Korean Peninsula affairs, par...

Seong-ho Sheen, a Professor at Seoul National University, examines the theory of coercive diplomacy and its successful application in persuading Libya’s Gaddafi regime to renounce nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. Based on the literature on coercive diplomacy, he lays out the conditions for effective coercion such as proportionality, rec...

Won Gon Park, Chair of the EAI North Korea Studies Center, asserts that while Kim Jong Un has recently showcased North Korea's growing military capabilities by deploying 250 tactical ballistic missile launchers, this move lacks substantial military significance due to the regime's limitations in missile production capacity and nuclear command and c...

Following the reopening of its borders in August 2023, North Korea has actively engaged in foreign exchanges, signaling a shift in its diplomatic strategy. Sang Ki Kim, a Research Fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification, contends that North Korea is now pursuing a "New Cold War" approach, involving the deepening of ties with Russia a...

Chaesung Chun, Chair of the EAI’s National Security Research Center and Professor at Seoul National University, highlights that despite growing fatigue and skepticism regarding the possibility of North Korea's denuclearization, the DPRK would not be able to sustain its current stance on denuclearization due to its strained economy, the doomed fat...