Brent Scowcroft Center Resident Senior Fellow Robert Manning writes for Nikkei Asian Review on North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and predictions about the regime’s durability:
It leaves top military men and foreign ministry officials in Washington, Seoul and even Beijing scratching their heads: how does North Korea keep going? This question acquires a new urgency, with Pyongyang’s byungjin policy — developing nuclear weapons and its economy simultaneously — raising the possibility of a more durable North Korea with greater missile and nuclear capabilities.
South Koren President Park Geun-hye pressed Chinese President Xi Jinping to support Korean reunification during her recent trip to Beijing. For decades, the South Korean dream has been a “soft landing” and a peaceful, calibrated process of reunification. But what if the reality is neither a soft nor hard landing, but instead, no landing?