North Korea
Reports
Korean unification: Prospect and global implications
Prospects for the Korean peninsula: Views from Japan and the United States
U.S. policy toward North Korea: The human rights and security linkage
Richard C. Bush
The Michael H. Armacost Chair
Chen-Fu and Cecilia Yen Koo Chair in Taiwan Studies
Co-Director - Center for East Asia Policy Studies
Senior Fellow - Foreign Policy, John L. Thornton China Center
Sheena Chestnut Greitens
Nonresident Senior Fellow - Foreign Policy, Center for East Asia Policy Studies
Evans J.R. Revere
Nonresident Senior Fellow - Foreign Policy, Center for East Asia Policy Studies
[On President Moon Jae-in's definition of a 'red line' for North Korea] The only way we will know definitively that North Korea actually has a nuclear-armed missile that works is to demonstrate this capability...It would be considered an act of war which others would see as justifying preemption, and retaliation if preemption or missile defense did not work.
[Kim Jong Un] wants to be validated. He presides over one of the most misbegotten regimes in the world that has an economy one fortieth the size of South Korea's. He is trying to claim that he is now on a level playing field with the most powerful state in the world, so he does this through an over-commitment to military programs.
[Kim Jong Un] is not a man who wants to go to war with the United States...[North Koreans] were not going to strike first because they know the risks if they did launch some kind of missile attack.
[U.S. military capabilities in the Pacific are] very imposing, very impressive [and are intended] to deter the North from any kind of potential actions. But if the North were to act, the U.S...would have to deploy far more to the peninsula and the region as quickly as possible.
[So far there have been no efforts to evacuate U.S. citizens living in South Korea.] That would be the clearest indication that we were headed toward war. And I don't think we are.
Unless someone believes the [U.S.] can somehow go in, take out everything that North Korea has—and everything is a whole lot—there is going to be major retaliation against the South and Americans will die.