Crisis on the Korean Peninsula

There are few places in the world more dangerous than the Korean peninsula; yet after a decade of engagement with North Korea, the world is no closer to resolving this potentially disastrous stalemate. After the 1994 framework de facto broke down in 2002, all bets about how to deal with North Korea were off. The world had to start over. America was not only focused on Iraq (thus putting on hold dealing with North Korea), but it also lacked any comprehensive plan for diffusing the crisis. The purpose of the "Crisis in the Korean Peninsula," by Michael O'Hanlon and Mike Mochizuki, is to fill this gap and offer a broad strategy about what to do with North Korea. The plan is both comprehensive and ambitious. In fact, ambition is its chief attraction; Mr. O'Hanlon and Mr. Mochizuki do not want to diffuse the crisis, they want to resolve it. That means offering North Korea an alternative future with more security and more prosperity. This "grand bargain" entails abandoning nuclear weapons, reducing conventional forces, obtaining security guarantees from America, reforming economically (modeled after China or Viet Nam), launching a dialogue on human rights, and returning Japanese kidnapped victims.The big question, of course, is whether such a plan is realistic. The authors do their best to show that it is. America, China, Russia, South Korea and Japan can all benefit from stability and prosperity in the peninsula. What about North Korea? This is an enigma, but the authors' argument that Pyongyang might go for it is both persuasive and interesting.When everything else has failed, there is little harm in changing course. But Mr. O'Hanlon and Mr. Mochizuki have produced a great vision from this dead end; this book is an incisive look into the history of the conflict with North Korea and a road map to solving it. At least, if this plan fails, the authors argue, the world will know for sure that there is no reform for North Korea--no carrots, just sticks. But their plan surely deserves a chance to work first.

Michael O'Hanlon is one of the most brilliant and perceptive writers on strategic issues around today, as many of his many readers in the Los Angeles Times know well. Now pairing up with the other Mike at the Brookings, he does not disappoint his many fans with this superbly written new book. With North Korea there is no doubt about whether or not this rogue state possesses many weapons of lethal danger, nuclear being among them. But that means that to negotiate with a regime as dangerous as the North Korean takes endless tact and wisdom - failure could result in the deaths of millions of people. It is precisely such wisdom that the two Mikes of the Brookings provide us - so start praying now that their wisdom prevails, that the threat is dealt with peacefully and that war will not come to Asia, as many understandably fear. Christopher Catherwood, author of CHRISTIANS, MUSLIMS AND ISLAMIC RAGE (Zondervan, 2003) and THE BALKANS IN WORLD WAR 2 (Palgrave, 2003)

By giving a comprehensive background and precise insight to the nature of the North Korean regime and how it percieves and aims to ensure its national interest, O'Hanlon and Mochizuki present a persuasive argument as to why the innovative diplomatic solution they propose in this book might not only work to solve the current nuclear situation, but also be able to transform the nature of the North Korean regime in the long haul. Being extraordinary timely, this book offers a powerful diplomatic proposal well worthy of senior US political leaders consideration, while effectively explaining why specific counterarguments to their argument do not hold up to closer scrutiny. I was very impressed by this book and hope its analysis and policy prescription will effect how the United States deals with the North Korean nuclear problem.