Preventing North Korea’s Nuclear Breakout
Dr. Robert S. Litwak

April 13, 2017

With its ballistic missile and nuclear tests, North Korea is on the verge of a strategic breakout that could directly threaten the U.S. homeland. In this presentation, Robert Litwak argues that the United States should pivot to serious diplomacy through a strategy of coercive engagement. A new conjunction of factors creates an opportunity to constrain the North’s capabilities through a freeze agreement—one that, in the near term, optimizes the interests among all the major parties.

Dr. Robert Litwak is vice president for scholars and director of international security studies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He is also a consultant to the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He served on the National Security Council staff as director for nonproliferation in the Clinton administration. He was an adjunct professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and has held visiting fellowships at Harvard University’s Center for International Affairs, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Oxford University. He is the author of Outlier States, Deterring Nuclear Terrorism, Iran’s Nuclear Chess, and, most recently, Preventing North Korea’s Nuclear Breakout.

Preventing North Korea’s Nuclear Breakout

With its ballistic missile and nuclear tests, North Korea is on the verge of a strategic breakout that could directly threaten the U.S. homeland. In this presentation, Robert Litwak argues that the United States should pivot to serious diplomacy through a strategy of coercive engagement. A new conjunction of factors creates an opportunity to constrain the North’s capabilities through a freeze agreement—one that, in the near term, optimizes the interests among all the major parties.

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