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North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs have spurred Japan and South Korea to develop their own ballistic missile defense (BMD) systems and to regenerate their interest in regional missile defense cooperation with the United States. Has North Korea reacted to such developments, and if so, how? This paper looks at North Korea’s missile capacity development as well as its official proclamations and concludes that while Pyongyang likely does not believe that it is the region’s sole target for U.S. and allied BMD, it feels deeply threatened by its deployment. Existing and potential BMD systems have not discouraged Pyongyang from building its own missiles. Rather, North Korea is accelerating its efforts to improve and expand its missile arsenal to develop a survivable force, likely perceiving BMD systems as part of an overall U.S. strategy that is hostile to Pyongyang.

In 1994, the United States and North Korea signed the Agreed Framework, in which Pyongyang promised to abandon its nuclear program in exchange for energy aid and improvement of relations with Washington. An international consortium led by the United States was created to implement the key provisions of the deal, including the delivery of two light water reactor (LWR) units. While multi-national efforts are common in commercial nuclear projects, the case of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) was unique. KEDO’s challenges ranged from the lack of diplomatic relations between its main members and North Korea, to the country’s poor infrastructure. This paper examines KEDO’s experience and concludes that cooperation among its member states—Japan, South Korea, the United States and others—helped ensure the project’s financial and political feasibility, even if work did not proceed smoothly. While the construction of the LWRs was never completed due to larger political changes, KEDO’s experience offers lessons for future nuclear projects that face similar hurdles.

The United States has employed a wide range of foreign policy tools to try to stop North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, including two cooperative agreements that ultimately failed to produce the desired outcome. The breakdown of the 1994 Agreed Framework and the Six Party Talks process in the 2000s has led many to conclude that North Korea’s nuclear weapons program cannot be constrained through cooperation. According to this view, Pyongyang violated its previous commitments once it received economic and political benefits and it will do so again in any future negotiations. The underlying assumption is that Washington was fully implementing its own commitments until Pyongyang broke the deal. Is this true, or did U.S. domestic politics complicate the implementation of the agreements? This dissertation explores this question through a four-part case study using three analytical lenses: a rational actor model, an institutional interests model, and an individual mindset model. It finds that the United States retreated from full cooperation with North Korea not just because of Pyongyang’s actions, but also due to domestic political considerations. Washington reduced its level of cooperation when tolerance for concessions weakened in the domestic system, sometimes because of institutional interests and sometimes due to political maneuvers by individuals who favored stronger coercive measures and more concessions from North Korea. The study shows that domestic politics impacts not only the negotiation and ratification of international cooperation agreements, but also their implementation. The findings also suggest it is incorrect to assume that past engagement efforts did not succeed solely due to North Korean actions. Whether a more fully implemented engagement policy would have led to North Korea’s denuclearization is beyond the scope of this study, but it indicates U.S. policy was not applied consistently to North Korea. Any future engagement strategy should aim at a m

The following papers were commissioned as part of the Missile Defense, Extended Deterrence, and Nonproliferation in the 21st Century project supported by the Project on Advanced Systems and Concepts for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (PASCC). The papers have two general purposes: 1) to create a body of work that provides an overview of the missile defense developments in major regions of the world; and 2) to provide emerging scholars the opportunity to conduct research, publish, and connect with each other. We believe we have succeeded on both counts. The papers written for this project will be valuable for academics and policymakers alike, and will be published and disseminated by the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland. This element of the project has also been successful in further bringing together a new cadre of experts in the field and developing the next generation of academics and public servants who will benefit from their participation in this project. These papers were completed in the Fall of 2016.