home > by publication type > task force reports > U.S. Policy Toward North Korea
Email
| Chairs: | The Honorable Morton I. Abramowitz, Senior Fellow, The Century Foundation James T. Laney |
|---|---|
| Director: | Michael J. Green |
Publisher: Council on Foreign Relations Press
Release Date: July 1999
29 pages
ISBN 0876092636
$7.00
Task Force Report No. 24
The Korean peninsula remains one of the world’s most dangerous places. While North Korea has an army of 1.2 million troops and holds Seoul hostage with its missiles and artillery, Pyongyang is in desperate straits after a decade of economic decline, food shortages, and diplomatic isolation. In 1998, former U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry traveled to Pyongyang to propose increasing outside aid from the United States, South Korea, and Japan in exchange for North Korea’s promise to reduce military provocations.
The third in a series of influential Task Force reports on Korea policy, this study argues that, in spite of tensions, the United States should continue to support South Korea’s engagement policy and keep Perry’s proposal on the table. The Task Force recommends that, should North Korea increase tensions by testing long-range missiles, the United States and its allies should take a new approach to Pyongyang, including enhancing U.S.-Japan and South Korean deterrence against other North Korean threats, suspending new South Korean investment in North Korea, and placing new Japanese restrictions on financial transfers to the North. By suggesting the possibility of gradually reducing the danger on the Korean peninsula, this report represents a crucial addition to the discussion of U.S.-North Korean economic relations.
MORTON I. ABRAMOWITZ is senior fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations. He was ambassador to Turkey and served as assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research.
EDWARD J. BAKER is associate director of the Harvard-Yenching Institute, a foundation associated with Harvard University that brings East Asian scholars to the United States for research and studies.
DANIEL E. BOB is special assistant for Asian and Pacific affairs for Senator William V. Roth Jr. (R-Del.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. He worked previously as assistant director for studies and policy programs at the Japan Society of New York and as a Fulbright Scholar in Fiji.
JEROME A. COHEN is C.V. Starr senior fellow for Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He directs his law practice at the international law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison and teaches at New York University Law School.
JAMES DELANEY is a consultant to the Institute for Defense Analyses. He served as an intelligence officer in East Asia for more than twenty years.
WILLIAM M. DRENNAN is a program officer at the United States Institute of Peace, specializing in Korean Peninsula security issues.
L. GORDON FLAKE is executive director at the Mansfield Center for Pacific Affairs. He was associate director of the program on conflict resolution at the Atlantic Council of the United States.
MICHAEL J. GREEN is senior fellow for Asia Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is also acting director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.
DONALD P. GREGG is chairman of the Korea Society. He served as U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Korea (1989-93).
FRANK S. JANNUZI is a member of the minority staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He served for eight years as the East Asia regional political-military analyst in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, U.S. Department of State.
ARNOLD KANTER is senior fellow at the Forum for International Policy and a Principal in the Scowcroft Group. He served as undersecretary of state for political affairs (1991-93), and as special assistant to the president for defense policy and arms control (1989-91).
RICHARD KESSLER is minority subcommittee staff director, Subcommittee on International Security, Proliferation, and Federal Services, Governmental Affairs Committee, U.S. Senate.
JAMES T. LANEY is president emeritus of Emory University. He served as U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Korea (1993-97).
WINSTON LORD is a currently member of several non-government organizations, including serving as vice chairman of the International Rescue Committee. He has previously served as assistant secretary of state, ambassador to China and president of the Council on Foreign Relations.
ROBERT A. MANNING is senior fellow and director of Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He was a State Department adviser for policy (1989-93).
MARCUS NOLAND is senior fellow of the Institute for International Economics. He has served as the senior economist for international economics at the Council of Economic Advisers.
DONALD OBERDORFER, a former Washington Post correspondent, is distinguished journalist-in-residence at the Foreign Policy Institute of the Johns Hopkins University's Nitze School of Advanced International Studies and author of The Two Koreas.
DOUGLAS H. PAAL is president of the Asia Pacific Policy Center (APPC). Prior to forming the APPC, he was special assistant to President George W. Bush and President Ronald Reagan for national security affairs and senior director for Asian affairs on the National Security Council.
JAMES J. PRZYSTUP is senior fellow of the Institute for National Strategic Studies at National Defense University. He was director of the Asian Studies Center at the Heritage Foundation.
JASON T. SHAPLEN is a policy adviser at the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) where his primary responsibility is to prepare and negotiate agreements between KEDO and North Korea in connection with the light-water-reactor nuclear project.
SCOTT SNYDER is undertaking independent research under the sponsorship of the Abe Fellowship program of the Social Sciences Research Council. He is currently on leave from the U.S. Institute of Peace, where he is a program officer in the research and studies program.
STEPHEN J. SOLARZ is president of Solarz Associates. He served for eighteen years in the U.S. House of Representatives and for twelve of those years as chairman of the Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs. He now heads an international business consultancy.
HELMUT SONNENFELDT is a guest scholar with the foreign policy studies program at the Brookings Institution. He is a director and member of the executive committee of the Atlantic Council of the United States and a trustee of the Johns Hopkins University.
NANCY BERNKOPF TUCKER is professor of history at Georgetown University and the Georgetown School of Foreign Service. She served in the State Department Office of Chinese Affairs and the U.S. Embassy, Beijing (1986-87).
WILLIAM WATTS is President of the Potomac Associates. He served as Foreign Service officer with service in Korea, Germany, and the Soviet Union, and as staff secretary at the National Security Council.
DONALD S. ZAGORIA is a professor of government at Hunter College and an adjunct professor of government at Columbia University. He is also a trustee of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy.
Explore international efforts to curb nuclear proliferation with a new interactive from CFR's program on International Institutions and Global Governance.
To order Task Force reports, Council Special Reports, and Critical Policy Choices, please call, fax, or order online from our distributor, the Brookings Institution Press: phone +1.800.537.5487, fax +1.410.516.6998.
For information on other reports that are not for sale, or for general publications information, please call +1.212.434.9516 or email publications@cfr.org.
In War of Necessity, War of Choice, Richard N. Haass contrasts the decisions that shaped the conduct of two wars between the United States and Iraq involving the two presidents Bush and Saddam Hussein, and writes an authoritative, personal account of how U.S. foreign policy is made, what it should seek, and how it should be pursued.
In Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, Julia E. Sweig presents a remarkably accessible portrait of Cuba’s unique place on the world stage over the past fifty years, including its internal politics, its often fraught relationship with the United States, and its shifting relationship with the global community.
As Ray Takeyh shows in Guardians of the Revolution, behind the famous personalities and extremist slogans of Iran is a nation that is far more pragmatic—and complex—than many in the West have been led to believe.
Complete list of CFR Books
This report finds that nuclear weapons will remain a fundamental element of U.S. national security in the near term, and makes recommendations on how to ensure the safety, security, and reliability of the U.S. deterrent nuclear force, prevent nuclear terrorism, and strengthen the nuclear nonproliferation regime.
About Independent Task Forces at CFR
Complete list of Task Force reports
The Canadian oil sands present an important challenge to policymakers: they promise energy security benefits but present climate change problems. Michael A. Levi assesses the energy security and climate change effects of the oil sands and makes recommendations for U.S. policymakers within the context of broader bilateral relations with Canada.
This report explores an important element of the maritime policy regime: the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Author Scott G. Borgerson examines the international negotiations that led to the convention, the history of debates in the United States over whether to join it, and the strategic importance of the oceans for U.S. foreign policy today.
Complete list of Council Special Reports
To request permission to reprint or reuse CFR material, please fill out this permissions request form (PDF), referring to the instructions on page 1.
Copyright 2009 by the Council on Foreign Relations. All Rights Reserved.