[뉴스] The ‘Axis of Evil’ Is Overhyped

Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum in July, longtime U.S. intelligence official John McLaughlin described the threat posed by China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia as “the distinguishing characteristic of our world right now.” McLaughlin, the former acting director of the CIA, warned that the United States’ adversaries had “formed a group” and were increasingly cooperating against Washington and its

[학술논문] South Korea-United States Relations in 2025: Lee Adjusts to Trump as the U.S.-China Conflict Deepens

...China's threats and to use trade and other policies to re-industrialize the U.S. economy. South Koreans, after a period of foreign policy stasis under a series of acting, lame-duck presidents, elected Lee Jae-myung president in June. Lee, choosing a stability-oriented foreign policy agenda, struck a bargain with Trump that was surprisingly satisfactory for both sides. Korea committed to significant new...

[학술논문] ROK Diplomacy: Navigating Uncharted Waters The Historic Significance of the Cheonan Incident for ROK Foreign Policy

...proving ground for the nation and its leadership, which shares fundamental values and basic strategic interests with the U.S. and Japan, to set a fundamental course for the nation’s long-term foreign policy. Seoul, Washington and Tokyo should take advantage of the currently enhanced momentum to further reinforce cooperation in security areas, bilaterally and trilaterally, and thus consolidate their...

[학술논문] Foreign Policy Practices and International Law Constraints in Korea

Korea’s bilateral foreign policy toward its neighboring states is firmly founded on the basis of the pragmatic realism. Korea has always prioritized national security and its alliance with the U.S. over any general rules of international law. By contrast, in the process of implementing Korea’s multilateral foreign policy, the norms of international law have been given serious consideration as Korea’s...

[학술논문] The Effects of the US-China Trade Conflict on South Korea

...denuclearize North Korea, as was the case before. The trade war between the US and China will have profound implications for South Korea’s foreign policy towards both the US and China. Washington is likely to put pressure on Seoul to choose between Washington and Beijing. The hedging approach is unlikely to be sustainable. Thus, the Lee administration is likely to face difficult foreign policy challenges.

[학술논문] Kidnapping Politics in East Asia

...same foreign adversary,North Korea (DPRK), violated the sovereignty of neighboring states. I use a comparison of South Korean and Japanese reactions to political captivity to assess institutional performance in democratic states and ways in which these dynamics are connected to international politics. We see how “captivity narratives”can be differentially constructed and deployed and how policy capture...

[해외] Paving the Way for Hostile Coexistence? What North Korea’s Constitutional Revisions Mean for Inter-Korean Ties

...constitution suggests about Pyongyang’s longer-term design vis-à-vis Seoul. The constitution largely confirms what Kim Jong Un himself had previewed in his December 2023 proclamation of a two-state policy and his follow-on calls in January 2024 for constitutional revisions. It treats South Korea (referred to specifically as the “Republic of Korea,” or the ROK, in the document) as a separate state across...

[해외] Rethinking North Korea diplomacy

...Venezuela and its war in Iran have drawn the spotlight away from the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia for much of 2026. Although North Korea remains relatively low on the administration’s list of foreign policy priorities, Korea watchers continue to speculate about a possible meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, driven in part by Trump’s own expressed interest. Travelling...

[해외] Pyongyang’s diplomatic calculus in an unstable multipolar order

North Korea’s contemporary diplomatic posture cannot be understood solely through the lens of U.S. relations with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Rather, Pyongyang’s foreign policy reflects a broader reassessment of the global order, the regional security environment, and its own position within what it increasingly perceives as an emerging multipolar order. This recalibration has...

[해외] North Korea as It Is: The Case for a Cold Peace

...pressure it to comply with nonproliferation agreements. The size and sophistication of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal today shows that these approaches have failed. In addition to inconsistent U.S. policy and a lack of attention to North Korea amid perennial crises elsewhere in the world, the United States has struggled to implement and enforce denuclearization agreements because of a lack of buy-in...

[해외] The Trouble With Permanent Alliances

For the past 75 years, the United States has pursued a historically anomalous strategy toward alliances. Traditionally, alliances were forged as highly contingent, time-bound partnerships, but after World War II, the United States went about establishing permanent ones, including NATO and bilateral alliances such as those with South Korea and Thailand. This practice had some use during the Cold War