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Disarming Strangers: Nuclear Diplomacy with North Korea
In June 1994 the United States went to the brink of war with North Korea. With economic sanctions impending, President Bill Clinton approved the dispatch of substantial reinforcements to Korea, and plans were prepared for attacking the North's nuclear weapons complex. The turning point came in an extraordinary private diplomatic initiative by former President Jimmy Carter and others to reverse the dangerous American course and open the way to a diplomatic settlement of the nuclear crisis.
Few Americans know the full details behind this story or perhaps realize the devastating impact it could have had on the nation's post-Cold War foreign policy. In this lively and authoritative book, Leon Sigal offers an inside look at how the Korean nuclear crisis originated, escalated, and was ultimately defused. He begins by exploring a web of intelligence failures by the United States and intransigence within South Korea and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Sigal pays particular attention to an American mindset that prefers coercion to cooperation in dealing with aggressive nations. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with policymakers from the countries involved, he discloses the details of the buildup to confrontation, American refusal to engage in diplomatic give-and-take, the Carter mission, and the diplomatic deal of October 1994.
In the post-Cold War era, the United States is less willing and able than before to expend unlimited resources abroad; as a result it will need to act less unilaterally and more in concert with other nations. What will become of an American foreign policy that prefers coercion when conciliation is more likely to serve its national interests? Using the events that nearly led the United States into a second Korean War, Sigal explores the need for policy change when it comes to addressing the challenge of nuclear proliferation and avoiding conflict with nations like Russia, Iran, and Iraq. What the Cuban missile crisis was to fifty years of superpower conflict, the North Korean nuclear crisis is to the coming era.
Few Americans know the full details behind this story or perhaps realize the devastating impact it could have had on the nation's post-Cold War foreign policy. In this lively and authoritative book, Leon Sigal offers an inside look at how the Korean nuclear crisis originated, escalated, and was ultimately defused. He begins by exploring a web of intelligence failures by the United States and intransigence within South Korea and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Sigal pays particular attention to an American mindset that prefers coercion to cooperation in dealing with aggressive nations. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with policymakers from the countries involved, he discloses the details of the buildup to confrontation, American refusal to engage in diplomatic give-and-take, the Carter mission, and the diplomatic deal of October 1994.
In the post-Cold War era, the United States is less willing and able than before to expend unlimited resources abroad; as a result it will need to act less unilaterally and more in concert with other nations. What will become of an American foreign policy that prefers coercion when conciliation is more likely to serve its national interests? Using the events that nearly led the United States into a second Korean War, Sigal explores the need for policy change when it comes to addressing the challenge of nuclear proliferation and avoiding conflict with nations like Russia, Iran, and Iraq. What the Cuban missile crisis was to fifty years of superpower conflict, the North Korean nuclear crisis is to the coming era.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published December 8, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 3, 2013
A very good book for it's time but so much has happened since it was written that it feels a little out-of-date. Still I liked it a lopt and there is a lot of information here.
August 21, 2020
So it is hard to take Sigal's book too seriously, when his main premise is that Pyongyang does not want nuclear weapons. Obviously, this tack is discredited in the current era, but the problems in his thinking and analyses go deeper. He talks about many things he clearly knows nothing about, he seems to be very focused on the American domestic politics side of thing, I felt his work is tinged with Orientalism. I did not like North Korea as being described as a potential "latter-day Genghis Khan" - what was that supposed to mean?
He incorrectly said that North Korea had not reprocessed plutonium after 1991, when at the time of publishing, we already knew that North Korea had reprocessed in 1991, 1993 and 1994.
He said that striking the Yongbyon reactor would end up "spewing radiation on Japan," utter nonsense, which shows he did not bother to know the most elementary things about both nuclear reactors and the North Korean reactor. The reactor at Yongbyon is extremely tiny, miniscule.
Arguing that North Korea could have responded to diplomacy is a hardsell, but he doesnt do a good job with it illustrating how little he knew. Describing the war scare as really on the brink of war is a misinterpretation of events, North Korea regularly rattles its sabers and it would be a mistake to think that they really were ever going to attack.
He incorrectly said that North Korea had not reprocessed plutonium after 1991, when at the time of publishing, we already knew that North Korea had reprocessed in 1991, 1993 and 1994.
He said that striking the Yongbyon reactor would end up "spewing radiation on Japan," utter nonsense, which shows he did not bother to know the most elementary things about both nuclear reactors and the North Korean reactor. The reactor at Yongbyon is extremely tiny, miniscule.
Arguing that North Korea could have responded to diplomacy is a hardsell, but he doesnt do a good job with it illustrating how little he knew. Describing the war scare as really on the brink of war is a misinterpretation of events, North Korea regularly rattles its sabers and it would be a mistake to think that they really were ever going to attack.
November 16, 2007
Fair. I like tis book - the author tries to be a bit critical and neutral and puts NK on the larger scheme of international politics. Not so sensational, so easy to read through.
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December 27, 2013Where are the negative stars? The ones that mean I hate this book. Stupid and biased and crappy scholarship. I feel better for having gotten that out.
July 28, 2016
This is worth reading in other to understand DPRK's bargaining behaviour.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews