North Korea in the Crosshairs: Strategic Considerations about the Conflict

Description

This anthology put together by the Modern Diplomacy gives readers an up-to-the-minute rendering of the conflict raging on the Korean peninsula from diplomatic, military, intelligence, cultural, and political perspectives – from the local on-the-ground street level all the way up to the grandest international organization/global power level. As is always the case with Modern Diplomacy, we seek to dissect problem issues and conflict regions with no specific agenda being pushed, no diplomatic angle being highlighted, and no one country treated as having the perfect answer or solution out of the impasse.

This is particularly important for studies on North Korea. For while the global community itself seems unanimously against the strategic, diplomatic, and military initiatives of the North Korean leadership, it is important to place all of these events and actions in a larger regional and global context. This does not mean we are seeking to earn North Korea empathy or endorse any of the country’s inconsistent or unpredictable behaviors. Rather, Modern Diplomacy believes the only way of hoping to unpack and unravel such behavior is to attempt to understand how it sees the world, its neighbors, its allies, and rivals. It isn’t necessarily about putting North Korea in a global objective context, but seeking to understand how North Korea subjectively perceives itself and its own situation. Elucidating these perceptions – no matter how delirious, unstable, or uncertain they are – is the key to finding opportunities to defuse the conflict and propose workable resolutions. This is the true hope and purpose behind these short anthologies: a working resource for those decision-makers and activated global citizens who care about the world we live in and want to be better informed about all of its dangers.

So, we hope you enjoy this effort and truly find the information contained within a step in the right direction for making you more informed, more enlightened, and more willing to investigate the problem deeply, accurately, and powerfully. In a world full of misinformation and disinformation, may the readers of our anthologies be the light shining such shadows away into oblivion.