ISAS Working Papers

The evolving strategic crisis in the Korean peninsula is arguably the most critical of its kind that the contemporary international system confronts. This has ramifications, in one way or another, for every region in the world. It appears that the acquisition of nuclear weapons by the Democratic Republic of Korea, better known as North Korea, has already become an inexorable, and indeed inescapable, reality. The international effort now should be to contain the consequences in a way that a nuclear Armageddon is avoided. This paper explores some possibilities of how this goal can be best pursued.