The article was published by 38 North on July 9, 2012. To read the entire article, please click here.
As North Korea continues to defy the international community, there is a growing concern that the DPRK may never give up on its nuclear program. Although the US is currently engaging in a short-term strategy of “strategic patience,” continued progress on North Korea’s nuclear program may prompt the US to change its North Korean policy goal from “dismantlement” to “containment.” In her piece, entitled “DPRK Deadlock: Implications for the Future of US-Japan Defense Cooperation,” Yuki Tatsumi outlines how a change in US policy towards the DPRK could affect its alliance with Japan. She argues that if the US were to make such a policy shift, it would have a devastating effect on the US’s alliance with Japan. Japan would view a US policy of containment as unacceptable and the policy shift would likely result in an erosion of Japanese confidence in the US’s security commitment. Ultimately, this would destabilize the US-ROK-Japan trilateral alliance and, more broadly, the East Asian security environment.