The world's leading North Korea experts analyze the challenges and prospects the country is facing.

South Korea has emerged as a major contributor to international security, participating in a wide range of activities far from the Korean peninsula. CFR scholars outline several steps that will ensure that South Korea can sustain this broadened role.

An exploration of the possibilities for enhanced U.S.-ROK cooperation in both traditional and nontraditional spheres.

CFR scholars provide policy options for preventing a major crisis in the territories immediately adjacent to China: North Korea, Myanmar, Pakistan, and Central Asia.

Chinese officials see stability on the Korean peninsula under the Korean Armistice as a component that has enabled China's growth for over three decades. Despite a growing difference between the economic systems of China and North Korea, China's communist party leadership feels an affinity with North Korea because its government, like China's, pursues one-party leadership under a socialist banner.

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Escalating tensions on the peninsula due to North Korea's recent provocations motivate Presidents Xi Jinping and Park Geun-hye to closely coordinate policies toward the North. However, Beijing's shifty stance on sanctions, an increase in Sino-DPRK economic exchanges, and the obstacles to China-South Korea-Japan trilateral cooperation impede North Korea policy alignment between Beijing and Seoul. Still, the willingness of both leaders to improve bilateral relations offers a silver lining, explain CFR's Scott Snyder and See-won Byun of George Washington University.

In their first White House meeting on Tuesday, Presidents Obama and Park will likely seek to reassert the long-standing security and economic relationship between the United States and South Korea, says CFR's Scott Snyder.

Despite Pyongyang's aggressive public posturing in recent days, the greatest threat from North Korea will likely be a surprise guerilla-style provocation, says CFR Korea expert Scott Snyder.

North Korea's ratcheting up of tensions requires South Korean and U.S. military forces in Korea to be prepared to defend against North Korean military incursions. Resumption of diplomacy will only be possible when North Korea signals it is ready to resume dialogue and all parties agree on an agenda that includes both tension-reduction and denuclearization.

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Scott A. Snyder outlines five things to know about the increase in threats from North Korea.

"The complex evolution of the Obama administration's policy toward North Korea during its first term and the characteristics of President Obama's world view together provide a framework for considering what the administration is likely to do in a second term," says Scott A. Snyder.

A conservative and a progressive appear to offer South Koreans sharply different presidential options, but both are likely to pursue similar foreign policy tracks, says CFR's Scott Snyder.

On the upcoming South Korean presidential election, Scott A. Snyder says the determining vote will be "South Korea's bulging forties cohort" that played a critical role in South Korea's transition from authoritiarianism to democracy and also has the greatest stake in its economic stability.

Despite an ongoing threat from North Korea, South Korea has emerged as a producer rather than a consumer of international security goods. As a newly elected member of the UN Security Council, South Korea has the opportunity to use these investments as a "middle power" and responsible leader in the international community, says Scott A. Snyder.

South Korea has emerged as a major contributor to international security, participating in a wide range of activities far from the Korean peninsula. CFR scholars outline several steps that will ensure that South Korea can sustain this broadened role.

The world's leading North Korea experts analyze the challenges and prospects the country is facing.

Scott A. Snyder and See-won Byun observe that while the twenty-year anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and South Korea may provide a pretext for more active diplomacy to meet a growing list of potential disputes in the relationship, high-level contacts between China and North Korea have stalled, dampening China's hopes for regional engagement.

In his testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Scott Snyder argues that the United States should redouble its efforts to shape North Korea's strategic environment rather than try to identify the right combination of carrots and sticks to be used in a negotiation with Pyongyang.

A planned satellite launch by North Korea has suspended U.S. food aid. CFR's Scott Snyder says that Pyongyang is grappling with whether to choose international legitimacy or domestic political consolidation.

North Korea may be on the verge of a "transformative moment," which will require the time, attention, and resources of the winner of the U.S. presidential election, says CFR's Scott Snyder.

North Korea's decision to suspend nuclear tests in exchange for U.S. food aid may pave the way for resumption of the Six-Party Talks on denuclearization, but it's unlikely to yield significant progress, says CFR's Scott Snyder.

The United States and Republic of Korea should build on their nascent cooperation in international development to advance a host of common interests.

An exploration of the possibilities for enhanced U.S.-ROK cooperation in both traditional and nontraditional spheres.

Scott A. Snyder and See-won Byun say that uncertainties regarding a new North Korean leadership will create the context in which China, South Korea, and the United States must grapple with their future options for preserving stability in Northeast Asia.