Deciphering North Korean Negotiating Strategies: Implications for Northeast Asia's Nuclear Future
Jonathan D. Pollack

June 27, 2018

The intensive political-military struggles between the Trump Administration and North Korea over the past sixteen months are expected to culminate in a first-ever meeting between the leaders of the United States and the DPRK in Singapore on June 12. Irrespective of whether the Singapore discussions are held as planned, the resultant outcomes will be shaped by negotiating strategies that North Korea has refined over decades of involvement with the nuclear weapons issue. By reviewing how North Korea employs political language and combines declaratory policies with its weapons development programs, this lecture will shed light on the strengths and liabilities of North Korean strategy, relative to the United States, the Republic of Korea, China, and Japan, as well as suggest potential future directions in North Korean policy.

Jonathan Pollack was (until January 2018) Senior Fellow in the Center for East Asian Policy Studies and the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution, Washington, DC. He remains a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at Brookings and now resides in Los Angeles. Prior to his appointment at Brookings in 2010, he served in senior research and management positions at the US Naval War College in Newport, RI (2000-2010) and at RAND, in Santa Monica, CA (1978- 2000). His primary areas of research interest focus on East Asian security and strategic affairs (especially China and the two Koreas) and US strategy in Asia and the Pacific. His publications include No Exit: North Korea, Nuclear Weapons and International Security (International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2011); and Endangered Order: Revisionism and Strategic Risk in Northeast Asia, to be published by Brookings in late 2018.