Learning to Live With a Nuclear North Korea: A Conversation With Victor Cha

About this episode

Victor Cha discusses the failures of U.S. policy towards North Korea and proposes a new strategy for managing the nuclear threat.

For most of the past few decades, North Korea was considered a top challenge for American foreign policy. In the past few years, however, it has mostly receded from attention—not because the U.S. approach to the problem succeeded but because it so completely failed. U.S. policy insisted that North Korea could never become a nuclear power, yet North Korea’s program has accelerated year by year, threatening not just American allies, but now the American homeland. U.S. policy aimed to isolate the Kim family’s totalitarian regime, yet the North Korean leadership has managed to skillfully navigate the new geopolitics, solidifying its rule and bolstering ties with both China and Russia. The commitment to pursuing nuclear weapons no matter the cost has looked especially savvy in the wake of U.S. attacks on Iran. Victor Cha has long been one of the foremost practitioners and analysts of U.S. policy toward North Korea. In a new essay for Foreign Affairs, he argues that Washington must reckon with this long record of failure and craft a new strategy for managing the North Korea problem, one that gives up for now on denuclearization and tries to achieve what Cha calls a cold peace. Editor…

People in this episode

Host: Dan Kurtz-Phelan

Guest: Victor Cha

Topics covered

• North Korea
• U.S. foreign policy
• nuclear weapons
• geopolitics
• cold peace
• American homeland security

Keywords

• North Korea
• nuclear power
• U.S. policy
• geopolitics
• cold peace
• Victor Cha
• Dan Kurtz-Phelan

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Foreign Affairs

Places: North Korea, United States, Korean peninsula, China, Russia, Iran

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