In July 2006, I wrote about the potential for an East Asian arms race. One possibility mentioned at that time was of Japan also going nuclear if a reunified Korea chose that option. A recent Congressional Research Service report, “Japan’s Nuclear Future: Policy Debate, Prospects, and U.S. Interests,” (PDF) 19 February 2009, has [...]

In November I speculated that Kim Jong-il’s apparent stroke in August might prompt him to select a successor before he dies or becomes incapacitated. Reporting from Yonhap claims that Kim Jong-il’s third son, Kim Jong-un (김정운) (also Romanized as Jong-eun and Jong-woon, has been chosen as his successor:
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has [...]

The trouble with North Korea is that nobody wants it — except the current ruling elite of North Korea itself.
In a previous post, I rather immodestly predicted that, should the Kim regime collapse in North Korea, a military junta backed by China would emerge, resulting in a Burma-ization of North Korea. I further speculated that [...]

This post is continued from last July, when rumors or Kim Jong-il having heart surgery had (again) brought up the question of who would lead North Korea should he die. That post basically covered dynastic succession and focused on his three legitimate sons, Kim Jong-nam (김정남), Kim Jong-chol (김정철), and Kim Jong-eun (김정운), none of [...]

A reader in Glasgow, Scotland sends in the following questions:

What do you think the feeling is of the younger generation within South Korea to North Korea?
What do you think the general feeling amongst younger South Koreans towards reunification?

The short answer is that young South Koreans appear to regard the North Korean regime as less [...]

Update: Some timely comments on the problem of Roh and the effect on the U.S.-ROK alliance.
Original post: The Brookings Institution North Korea page has a new paper (h/t Kevin) on U.S.-ROK relations, “Looking Back and Looking Forward: North Korea, Northeast Asia and the ROK-U.S. Alliance,” (full paper-PDF) by Dr. Park Hyeong-jung, a Senior Fellow at [...]

The latest edition of the Military Review, a publication of the US Army’s Combined Arms Center located at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, has an excellent paper on, “Finding America’s Role in a Collapsed North Korean State.” (PDF) An excerpt:
American military and political thinkers today are focused on creating policies to govern stability operations, but this invariably [...]

I don’t see this as hurting much, but as usual the Kim regime is the short-to-mid term winner, which mean most North Koreans are the losers:
Reunification IT Forum (South), Chosun People’s Science Technology Association (North) and Chinese Information Society co-hosted ICMIP 2007 in Yenji, China on November 27 to 28.
At the conference, IT experts from [...]

Dr. Andrei Lankov’s latest article on reunification is out and is as usual a must read. Some of the points he covers are:

While both Koreas say they want reunification, in reality neither is prepared for the costs to their side; loss of power for the elites in North Korea, and severe financial hardship in South [...]

Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland have an article in the latest Newsweek International (h/t OneFreeKorea) concerning the apparent change in North Korea’s attitude towards negotiations to denuclearize. While I don’t agree with all they suggest, this is what to take away from this article:
We think we know why North Korea is softening, or at least [...]