Managing another North Korean crisis : South Korean, Japanese and U.S. approaches

The renewed crisis over a suspected North Korean nuclear weapons program has raised significant challenges for the governments of the United States, South Korea, and Japan. While close coordination between these three states has been the avowed policy aim, the reality is that differences in approach, reflecting varying perceptions as well as different policy determinants and constraints, can be identified. This article demonstrates not only that, along the broad policy spectrum from pressure to dialogue, the Bush administration takes a tougher line, the Roh administration a softer one, and the Koizumi administration an intermediate one, but also that subtle changes in those positions are occurring.