The Russian Response: The Nuclear Crisis

Abstract

After the second nuclear crisis erupted, in August 2003 Russia for the first time joined a multinational conference on the North Korean nuclear issue, restoring its voice in Korean affairs. The Korean peninsula had remained a focus of attention throughout the twentieth century. Tsar Nicolas II, Lenin, Stalin, Brezhnev, and finally Gorbachev, for various reasons and in different forms, tried to get the upper hand there. After the acute disappointment at being marginalized in the first nuclear crisis, officials under Boris Yeltsin again sought to raise Russia’s profile on the peninsula from the mid-1990s. The move to balance relations with the two Koreas culminated in Vladimir Putin’s framework of both improving relations with the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea) and keeping good rapport with the ROK (Republic of Korea, South Korea), while intensifying collaborative actions regarding Korea with other players—the United States, China, and Japan.1 Explaining how this framework operates, I examine Russian contributions at the Six-Party Talks and views on the nuclear issue.KeywordsForeign PolicyKorean PeninsulaSecurity CouncilLiberal Democratic PartyNuclear ProgramThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.