A country of stark contradictions and puzzles, North Korea exhibits uncanny resilience in the face of external shocks and internal woes, raising important questions of theoretical and real-world significance. What has made it possible for North Korea to defy the classical realist axiom, "The strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept"? What is the nature of the North Korean threat in post-Cold War Northeast Asia? What kind of bargaining leverage d...

“A meaty, fast-paced portrait of North Korean society, economy, politics and foreign policy.” -Foreign AffairsThe definitive account of North Korea, its veiled past and uncertain future, from the former Director for Asian Affairs at the National Security CouncilIn The Impossible State, seasoned international-policy expert and lauded scholar Victor Cha pulls back the curtain on this controversial and isolated country, providing the ...

Andrei Lankov has gone where few outsiders have ever been. A native of the former Soviet Union, he lived as an exchange student in North Korea in the 1980s. He has studied it for his entire career, using his fluency in Korean and personal contacts to build a rich, nuanced understanding. In The Real North Korea, Lankov substitutes cold, clear analysis for the overheated rhetoric surrounding this opaque police state. After providing an accessible history of the nation, he turns his focus to ...

North Korea continues to make headlines, arousing curiosity and fear in equal measure. The world's most secretive nuclear power, it still has Gulag-style prison camps, allows no access to the Internet and bans its people from talking to foreigners without official approval. In this remarkable and eye-opening book, internationally best-selling author Paul French examines in forensic detail the history and politics of North Korea, Pyongyang's complex relations with South Korea, Japan, China ...

Despite its impressive size and population, economic vitality, and drive to upgrade its military, China remains a vulnerable nation surrounded by powerful rivals and potential foes. Understanding China's foreign policy means fully appreciating these geostrategic challenges, which persist even as the country gains increasing influence over its neighbors. Andrew J. Nathan and Andrew Scobell analyze China's security concerns on four fronts: at home, with its immediate neighbors, in surroundin...

Following the death of Kim Jong Il, North Korea has entered a period of profound transformation laden with uncertainty. This authoritative book brings together the world’s leading North Korea experts to analyze both the challenges and prospects the country is facing. Drawing on the contributors’ expertise across a range of disciplines, the book examines North Korea’s political, economic, social, and foreign policy concerns. Considering the implications for Pyongyang’s transition, it focuse...

This 2010 book examines the changes in politics, economics, society, and foreign policy in South Korea since 1980. Starting with a brief description of its history leading up to 1980, this book deals with South Korea's transition to democracy, the stunning economic development achieved since the 1960s, the 1997 financial crisis, and the economic reforms that followed and concludes with the North Korean nuclear crisis and foreign relations with regional powers. The theoretical framework of ...

Renowned for his coverage of China's elite politics and leadership transitions, veteran Sinologist Willy Lam has produced the first book-length study in English of the rise of Xi Jinping--General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since November 2012. With rare insight, Lam describes Xi's personal history and his fascination with quasi-Maoist values, the factional politics through which he ascended, the configuration of power of the Fifth-Generation leadership, and the country'...

This volume provides a coherent and comprehensive understanding of Chinese security policy, comprising essays written by one of America's leading scholars.Chinese Security Policy covers such fundamental areas as the role of international structure in state behavior, the use of force in international politics (including deterrence, coercive diplomacy, and war), and the sources of great-power conflict and cooperation and balance of power politics, with a recent focus on inte...

In this paper, three long-time observers of Russia and the EU perform a reality check on the EU–Russia relationship. All three authors agree that a more realistic EU policy would deal with Russia as it is, not as the EU wants it to be. The reality of today’s Russia is complex, as is the policy formulation process in the EU. Nevertheless, the EU should start with a clearer idea of where its own interests and priorities lie. It should accept that it can achieve fruitful cooperation with Russ...

"The wars in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in neighboring Croatia and Kosovo grabbed the attention of the western world not only because of their ferocity and their geographic location, but also because of their timing. This violence erupted at the exact moment when the cold war confrontation was drawing to a close, when westerners were claiming their liberal values as triumphant, in a country that had only a few years earlier been seen as very well placed to join the west. In trying to account f...

The regime of Kim Jong-Il has been called "mad," "rogue," even, by the Wall Street Journal, the equivalent of an "unreformed serial killer." Yet, despite the avalanche of television and print coverage of the Pyongyang government's violation of nuclear nonproliferation agreements and existing scholarly literature on North Korean policy and security, this critical issue remains mired in political punditry and often misleading sound bites. Victor Cha and David Kang step back from the...