Nuclear Crisis Research Articles

The North Korean Nuclear Crisis and U.S.-led Missile Defense Responses in Probabilistic Analysis

The North Korean Nuclear Crisis and U.S.-led Missile Defense Responses in Probabilistic Analysis

Why is there no securitisation theory in the Korean nuclear crisis?

Despite the fact that the Korean nuclear crisis is one of the most protracted security issues in the world, the research analysing the crisis from the perspective of securitisation theory is curiously absent. This article attempts to pin down some distinguishing features of South Korea’s securitisation of the nuclear threat posed by North Korea, thereby investigating why one rarely sees the implications of securitisation theory in the way that the Copenhagen School theorists would suggest. Borrowing the key components of securitisation theory—existential threats, referent objects and extraordinary measures—this article suggests three elusive characteristics of the South Korean actors’ speech acts as sources highlighting the dilemma. To make the article’s arguments clearer, I hold Floyd’s classification of securitisation theory, which separated the securitisation process into two different stages: securitising move and security practice. While acknowledging the importance of the differences between illocution and perlocution in a securitisation process, this article takes this logic one step further by suggesting the limits of the perlocutionary effect in making the securitisation process complete.

Troublemaker or peacemaker? Andreas Papandreou, the Euromissile Crisis, and the policy of peace, 1981–86

ABSTRACTThe article sheds light on a neglected piece of the Euromissile Crisis puzzle, namely Greece’s policy of peace. The article examines the interaction of Andreas Papandreou’s socialist government’s foreign policy, developments in the country’s political culture and national frames of reference, and the unfolding drama of the nuclear crisis of the 1980s. While subscribing to an international cause, papandreou framed the policy of peace in ardent nationalist terms that involved renegotiation of the american bases on greek soil, relations with nato, balkan regional schemes for nuclear-weapons-free zones, and international initiatives with the third world.

Comment on the Solutions to the Middle East Security Issues and China’s Governance Style

The Middle East is the most turbulent region in the world. There have been incessant conflicts in this region over several decades, the most representative of which include the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, the Iranian nuclear crisis, the Syrian issue and terrorism, etc. In order to solve these security issues, the international community has implemented various solutions, most of which did not result in the expected results. Therefore, new solutions to the Middle East security issues are needed. With the rise of China, China has put forward a solution with Chinese characteristics. China’s new framework for security governance in the Middle East has distinct Chinese characteristics: solving security problems from the perspective of economic problems, the principle of gradualism in the Middle East security governance scheme, Coordination mechanism between great powers, and respecting the recommendations of major countries and state parties in the Middle East. The China’s Solutions will provide new ideas for the Middle East security governance.

Ethical Issues in Technological Disaster: A Systematic Review of Literature

Industrialization could bring risk of Technological Disaster (TD) such as happened in Chernobyl, Bhopal and Fukushima crisis. Little has been discussed about its related ethical issues. In this study, we aimed to investigate ethical issues have been stated for technological disasters. A systematic search was conducted on the main international literature databases including Pubmed, Embase, Scopus and ISI (Jan 1, 2000 to Jan 1, 2018). From 64articles were eligible for investigation of ethical issues in Natural disaster, 6 was related to Technological Disaster. The articles were in English language. Our result show that there are seven articles discussing ethical issues during Technological disaster. All of them are related to nuclear crisis in Fukushima resulting from Japan tsunami 2011. These articles discussed mainly three ethical issues in providing medical care to victims of Technological Disasters as follow: 1- Duty of care 2- Mandatory evacuationand3- Resource Allocation. Victim health is the main factor for making decision and implementation of any programs during response to disasters. Mandatory Evacuation for reasons other than providing health to people (such as: maintain public order) and if bring health risk to people will be unjustified. Duty of health workers for providing care is based on General beneficence meanwhile it is necessary to provide facilities to protect them from dangers that treat them in the field. For act ethically, Health workers must have adequate preparedness for response to T-D meanwhile it is necessary to provide guidelines for individuals that participation in relief operation. It is necessary to discuss more about Technological Disaster Ethics especially in industrial countries and where there is especial industrial with potential of huge crises.

The Rational Origin of Irrational Instability: Rising American Populism and its Political Ramification in Northeast Asia

This study discusses the rise of populism in the United States and its political ramification in the Northeast Asian region, surrounding the recent North Korean nuclear crisis. Rather than simply blaming the irrational behaviours of political leaders, this study argues that their different political preferences originating from their background as well as the demographic nature of their core constituency are the fundamental sources of instability in the region. Unlike the conventional understanding, this study claims that the key problem that has been driving countries in the region towards the nuclear debacle—as well as the sudden volte-face—is US political leader’s very rationality, unbounded by ideological or partisan traditions, rather than his irrational, or oft-regarded as deranged, personality.

Cultural otherness and disaster news: The influence of western discourses on Japan in US and UK news coverage of the 2011 Great East Japan Disaster

The Great East Japan Disaster of 2011 provides an important case study to evaluate how western media cover Japan. Employing a critical discourse analysis of coverage in The New York Times, The Guardian and The Observer this article seeks to examine how Japan and the disaster-affected communities of Tohoku were represented through the context of this disaster. The analysis revealed the presence of a cultural framework, enacted during the response phase of the disaster news cycle to explain how people in Japan were coping in the aftermath of the disaster, which was premised on a discourse of cultural otherness. The textual elements that underwrote this discourse included a tendency to draw on stereotypes and in the way culture was employed to provide context to individual stories. The analysis also acknowledges how forms of bias circulated through other discourses, in particular when covering the nuclear crisis at Fukushima. The article argues that this discourse of cultural otherness is, in part, attributable to the features of disaster journalism, rather than a lack of familiarity on the part of journalists with the cultural context.

The Possibility of Building a Peaceful Regime on the Korean Peninsula Via Multilateral Approaches

Multilateral approaches such as the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, the Four-Party and Six-Party Talks, and the Trilateral Coordination and Oversight Group (established by the USA, Japan, and South Korea to solve North Korea’s issues and to build a peaceful regime on the Korean Peninsula) have achieved few accomplishments since the Cold War. Exceptions include the avoidance of deadly clashes during ongoing multilateral talks at the time of serious situations including the nuclear crisis in 1994 and the Bush administration’s attempt to strike on North Korea with nuclear weapons. The USA has hesitated to conduct kind military relationships with North Korea because they seem to strongly recognize the high risk associated with physical conflict. Additionally, the USA and its allies have experienced North Korea’s ability with nuclear weapons. Many which have attempted to target the USA during the later years of the Clinton and Bush administrations. Dealing with North Korea contributes to the knowledge of those involved in the Six-Party Talks regarding how to work with the USA and others. Are multilateral approaches still efficient under this situation? Even with a number of several types of proposals such as China’s recent dual-track approach or double suspension approach—also backed by Russia—there seems to be no certain attempt to collaborate on building a peaceful regime. This paper will examine why multilateral approaches to building a peaceful regime post Cold War on the Korean Peninsula have forwarded little to a contextual perspective of the changing regional circumstances.

Nuclear India and the Global Nuclear Order

The 1998 nuclear tests conducted by India heralded yet another nuclear age. The instant response of a section of the international community was highly pessimistic. It foresaw regional instability, collapse of the global nuclear order and serious crisis in the global nuclear non-proliferation regime. As a result, overlooking India’s security imperatives, a number of countries reacted with hostility against the Indian nuclear tests. Even international organisations were mobilised against India. However, the two decades of India’s nuclearisation appear to have falsified the prediction of doomsayers. On the contrary, India has assumed the mantle of stabilising the global nuclear order and enhancing its own security in the process. Although it has not joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it has accepted the norms of non-proliferation. It is promoting non-proliferation and has joined different institutions associated with it. Concurrently, the international community has also started integrating and accommodating India in the global nuclear order in general and the non-proliferation regimes in particular.

China's clear and present conundrum on the Korean peninsula: stuck between the past and the future

In tackling the current nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula, President Donald Trump has invested—especially before the dramatic turn of events since early 2018—a great deal of political capital in President Xi Jinping in the hopes that he might rein in North Korea, China's traditional ally. However, expecting Beijing to ‘solve’ the problem is unrealistic. Chinese thinking on North Korea—as reflected in policy positions and domestic debates—has been marred by inconsistencies and overcaution and it is now further complicated by the intensifying geopolitical competition with the United States, which also embroils, to a varying degree, South Korea and Taiwan. Beijing has been strenuously walking a fine line between pressing Pyongyang and averting a war, all the while watching its back, particularly with regard to Taiwan and the South China Sea. Beijing's risk aversion over North Korea and its security competition with the US has led it into a geopolitical conundrum from which there is no clear exit.

Nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula: strategic adaptation, the Abe administration and extended deterrence in the face of uncertainty

In the wake of two nuclear tests in 2016, an additional test in 2017 and a series of missile launches by North Korea in 2016–17, Japan's government is facing a critical set of security challenges. These require adaptation and careful planning by the Abe administration and raise important questions about the future of Japanese defence policy, alliance relations with the United States, and cooperation between Japan and the Republic of Korea. The following article considers both the history and current state of relations between Tokyo, Washington and Seoul, the relationship between elite and public opinion within Japan, and the character of Prime Minister Abe's leadership at a time of acute strategic risk. While the danger of conflict in northeast Asia should not be minimized, the gravity of the current crisis potentially offers an important opportunity for policy innovation for the governing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

Impact of evacuation on trends in the prevalence, treatment, and control of hypertension before and after a disaster.

After the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, the prevalence of cardiovascular disease risk factors increased in victims. We examined the trends in the prevalence, treatment, and control of hypertension before and after the disaster, as well as the impact of evacuation. Study participants were approximately 10 000 men and 12 000 women aged 40-74 years in each year from 2008 to 2014. All of the participants had lived in radiation evacuation zones prior to the Fukushima nuclear crisis. The age-standardized prevalence, treatment, and control of hypertension were calculated using the direct method. In a comparison of evacuees with nonevacuees, the proportion ratios and 95% confidence intervals for hypertension, treatment, and control were calculated by Poisson regression with robust error variance adjusted for covariates in each year after the disaster. The age-standardized prevalence of hypertension peaked in 2012 at 48.8% in men and 39.0% in women. By 2014, the treatment and control of hypertension had increased to 66.3 and 67.1% in men, and 70.6 and 68.1% in women, respectively. The multiadjusted proportion ratios for the prevalence, treatment, and control of hypertension in any given year were 1.02-1.03, 0.99-1.05, and 0.93-1.06 in men, and 0.96-1.00, 0.99-1.05, and 1.06-1.11 in women, respectively. The prevalence of hypertension peaked 1 year after the disaster, while the treatment and control of hypertension increased thereafter. These results indicate that evacuation had little to no impact on the prevalence, treatment, and control of hypertension in the population of Fukushima Prefecture.

An effective sanctioning actor? Merging effectiveness and EU actorness criteria to explain evolutions in (in)effective coercion towards Iran

ABSTRACTEU sanctions invoked in response to the Iranian nuclear crisis (2006–2016) were long considered to be of limited effectiveness in halting Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Recently, however, sanctions seem to have contributed to a breakthrough in the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programme. This article aims at explaining this evolution. It, therefore, designs a framework that explains why sanctions (fail to) change targets’ behaviour. Since the sanctions effectiveness literature lacks an integrated framework to explain evolutions in effective coercion, this article merges sanctions effectiveness variables and Bretherton and Vogler’s actorness criteria. Applying the resulting framework to two broad episodes of the Iranian case (2006–2013 and 2013–2016), this article provides a first test of the framework’s added value. It concludes that a full understanding of sanctions effectiveness requires consideration of external, internal, and in-between factors.

Why Manga Matters after Fukushima

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster of 2011 has created an alternative space for reportage and journalism. While much research has investigated how mainstream news media reported the Fukushima disaster in Japan and elsewhere, virtually absent is a scholarly investigation of the role of new media artworks in shaping what it means to be the Fukushima nuclear crisis. This study thus focuses on the role of Japanese manga among various new media artworks, and investigates how the disaster was represented in comics form. Among various Japanese manga on the Fukushima disaster, this paper focuses on examining a Japanese manga titled as Ichi Efu: Fukushima Daiichi genshiryoku hatsudensho rōdōki or 1F: A cleanup worker’s account of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (thereafter, 1F) written by Kazuto Tatsuta, one of the Japanese cleanup workers at the wrecked power plant. Originally published in Morning, a Japanese weekly manga magazine in 2013, 1F illuminates what the consequences of the Fukushima disaster looked like from the perspectives of a cleanup worker, providing an uncommon view of Fukushima for a wide variety of audiences including comic fans in Japan and elsewhere.

South Korea in 2017

The biggest story of 2017 in South Korea was the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye and the election of Moon Jae-in, shifting power from conservative to progressive. The economy showed signs of recovery despite multiple concerns. The North Korean nuclear crisis intensified tensions in the region.

Deterrence or taboo? Explaining the non-use of nuclear weapons during the Indo-Pakistani post-tests nuclear crises

ABSTRACTThe literature on the India–Pakistan nuclear conundrum has neglected the impact of the international normative environment on India and Pakistan’s nuclear behavior. This article fills that gap, by looking at the impact of the nuclear taboo on Indo-Pakistani strategic interactions during the 1999 Kargil war and the 2002 border standoff. The nuclear taboo, rather than nuclear deterrence, explains the non-use of nuclear weapons. During both crises the nuclear taboo entered the decision-making process instrumentally, in the form of perceived reputational “costs.” The Indian and Pakistani emerging nuclear doctrines endanger a fragile nuclear taboo that would be strengthened by a bilateral non-first use accord. Whether India and Pakistan can move from an instrumental to a substantive acceptance of the nuclear taboo will depend on whether the United States and the other nuclear weapon states, included in the Nonproliferation Treaty, play the role of norm entrepreneurs and strengthen the nuclear taboo at the global level.

How to stop North Korea’s nuclear ambition: failed diplomacy and future options

ABSTRACTThere are two kinds of hostilities on the Korean Peninsula: hostility between the U.S. and North Korea; hostility between the two Koreas. The nature of North Korea’s nuclear crisis is a mixture of those two hostilities. The crisis was exacerbated by misinterpretation and wishful thinking regarding its intentions. Another reason for North Korea’s nuclear crisis is the failure of the international community to speak with one voice on how to resolve it. Every country is different in its threat perceptions, national interests, and strategic calculations. In the grand scheme of things, however, the North Korea problem seems to be a strategic conflict between the U.S. and China. South Korea’s internal friction prevented any policy from being implemented effectively.It is not only unfair but unrealistic to handle the two hostilities separately. Any efforts to denuclearize North Korea should not undermine the security of South Korea. For example, the withdrawal of the U.S. forces from the Korean peninsula may be even worse for peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula than a nuclear North Korea, if it keeps the current political system and there is no fundamental change in inter-Korean relations.Like the front and rear wheels in an automobile, the U.S.–North Korean dialogue and inter-Korean dialogue began to operate as two driving forces for a breakthrough in the nuclear crisis. The wheels should be aligned with a strong U.S.–R.O.K. alliance. Then a multilateral format like the Six-Party Talks can resume for a sustainable peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.

Far Short of a “Glorious Victory”: Revisiting China’s Changing Strategies to Manage the Korean War

This article represents the author's effort, in light of newer Chinese and Russian sources, to revisit a series of questions that he discussed over two decades ago: What was China's position in the making of the Korean War? Why and how did Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist leadership make the decision to enter the war? How should the Chinese experience during the war, with insights gained from new sources, be narrated and explained? By giving special attention to the 38th parallel as one of the war's most visible and long-lasting legacies, the article also serves as a historical reference for considering a critical part of origins of the Korean nuclear crisis that the world is facing today.

The North Korean Nuclear Crisis in 2017: New Challenges and Risks

North Korea’s hydrogen bomb test and ICBM tests in 2017 incurred a new crisis. Given that North Korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear weapons and a military option against it may be unworkable, deterrence becomes a realistic recourse to cope with the crisis. The most challenging issues are the North’s pursuit of more missile technologies and unknown aspects of nuclear command and control in Pyongyang.

The Birth and Revival of North Korea’s Denuclearization Policy for the Korean Peninsula1

To North Korea, the denuclearization plan of the Korean Peninsula is the first of its reactions to the American nuclear issue, and a regional ban on nuclear weapons that the country concerned can propose in order to deal with the regional nuclear issue. North Korea had already shown an interest in the establishment of a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone (NWFZ) in 1954; however, it began to assert the establishment of a NWFZ in the Korean Peninsula by applying the concept to their security environment in 1976, in which it started its activities as a member of the Non-Aligned Movement. The implementation of North Korea’s denuclearization policy on the Korean Peninsula unfolded in 1986, as North Korea authorized its plan for the denuclearization of the Peninsula as an immediate objective of its diplomatic activities. That is, North Korea pursued the establishment of a denuclearized zone on the Peninsula with the goal of managing its relationship with the Soviet Union and strengthening diplomacy of the Non-Aligned in 1986. Even though North Korea’s traditional claim for denuclearization of the Peninsula no longer served as an immediate task after 1994, when the first North Korean nuclear crisis was resolved, it re-emerged at the policy-level due to the 9.19 Joint Statement in 2005. Such re-authorization as party discourses was influenced by the engagement of the United States and South Korea, and active persuasion by China. It is noted that the denuclearization policy for the Korean Peninsula was re-authorized as party discourses of North Korea even after their declaration of nuclear-state status. Though this assertion towards denuclearization of the Peninsula remained as party discourses even after the suspension of the Six-Party Talks, it is yet unclear whether their willingness to pursue this policy has once again been reinforced at the higher levels amid the recent situation of the inter-Korean and U.S.-North Korea dialogues. It is inevitable that the diplomatic solution for the North Korean nuclear issue shall begin by reinforcing the denuclearization argument in North Korea. It is time to draw the international community’s coordinated engagement to make North Korea choose denuclearization more clearly.