韩国军事改革探析

韩国自20世纪80年代以来积极推进系统性军事改革,特别是卢武铉政府的《国防改革基本计划2006-2020》,充分吸收先前改革经验教训,通过法制化实现了此后历届政府的继承与坚持,引领着韩军当前及未来的建设方向。韩国当前军事改革在主动适应国际新军事变革发展潮流的同时,充分结合自身实际,在作战思想、指挥体系、编制体制、国防管理等各领域均表现出较强的针对性,致力于实现部队的减员增效和均衡发展,推动自主国防建设,提升应对朝鲜军事威胁的能力。同时,韩军在改革过程中,也暴露作战能力受到质疑、军费预算跟进不足,兵源难以为继等系列问题,成为影响韩国军事改革实施进度和最终成效的不确定因素。     

Serious Rules for Nuclear Power Without Proliferation

The authors propose five principles for addressing the major deficiencies of the current treaty-based approach to nonproliferation. These involve: effectively closing the door to withdrawals from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT); defining which nuclear technologies fall within the NPT's “inalienable right” provision, so as to maintain a reasonable safety margin against possible military application; expansion of International Atomic Energy Agency inspections to include greater readiness to use its “special” inspection authority; creation of an NPT enforcement regime, to include a secretariat; and universalizing the NPT so as to apply to all states, while creating a path for current non-parties to come into compliance. There is no illusion here about the prospects for the adoption of this approach. At a minimum, the world needs to be frank about the gap between nuclear programs and current nonproliferation protection. Encouragement of greater use of nuclear power should be predicated on closing that gap.     

Coercing to reconcile: North Korea's response to US ‘hegemony’

Since 1993 North Korea's response to US ‘hegemony’ has been a seemingly paradoxical attempt to bandwagon with the United States by means of military coercion. However, after more than a decade of effort, North Korea has failed to normalize its relations with the United States. In the years ahead, it can either pursue more proactively the strategy of bandwagoning with the United States, shift its strategic focus to China, or embark upon a policy of equidistance between the United States and Japan on the one hand and China on the other.     

INVESTIGATING THE RUBBLE OF SYRIA'S SECRET REACTOR

Damascus has severely impeded an investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) into Syria's construction of a covert nuclear reactor, which was destroyed in a 2007 Israeli air strike. Pressing Damascus to cooperate with the inquiry is necessary to ascertain that there are no other undeclared activities in Syria, to determine the role of North Korea in the construction of the reactor, and to help prevent future clandestine efforts. With Damascus doing its best to avoid the investigation, securing Syrian cooperation will require adept diplomacy backed by the prospect of special inspections and, if necessary, a referral to the UN Security Council. The case of Syria's secret reactor highlights areas in which the IAEA needs buttressing, from the enhanced sharing of information, to reporting that is less political and more forthright. The case also illustrates the downside of politicizing IAEA investigations and supports the new director's apparent intent to return the agency to its core technical tasks.     

COMPREHENSIVE NUCLEAR-TEST-BAN TREATY

President Barack Obama has pledged to secure the ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which was previously rejected by the U.S. Senate in 1999. This article attempts to predict the potential implications of Washington's ratification for the treaty's future by analyzing the positions and options of the eight other essential holdouts. The authors conclude that without the United States to hide behind, facing domestic and international constraints, and lacking substantial strategic reasons to remain outside the treaty, most holdouts will move toward ratification. Nonetheless, the process is likely to be time consuming, and several of the key actors remain unpredictable.     

“GOOD COP/BAD COP” AS A MODEL FOR NONPROLIFERATION DIPLOMACY TOWARD NORTH KOREA AND IRAN

Scholarly and popular literature in the recent past has framed nonproliferation diplomacy toward both Iran and North Korea as an example of “good cop/bad cop,” a social-psychological strategy borrowed from law enforcement to describe a process for forcing a confession by subjecting a target to stressful emotional contrast. This article examines those two cases, roughly covering the period since 2003, when the most recent attempts to deal with the Iranian and North Korean proliferation threats began, in light of criteria for employment of the good cop/bad cop strategy. There is some evidence that within the framework of the six-party talks with North Korea and within the framework of the EU-3-U.S. diplomacy toward Iran, the players seeking nonproliferation have adopted good cop/bad cop roles to that end. The article concludes, however, that while there are similarities to the interrogation room technique, the complexity of the international political environment as compared to the interrogation room has prevented the states involved from successfully adopting or effectively exploiting good and bad cop roles. Substantial and exploitable differences of interest among them, and the availability of alternative “escape routes” for the target state, raise serious questions about the applicability of the good cop/bad cop strategy to these two nonproliferation cases, and even about its applicability in future nonproliferation challenges.     

ENERGY FOR SECURITY:

Though North Korea agreed to partial denuclearization in February 2007, achieving that goal is at best a long way off. A natural gas pipeline linking all of Northeast Asia and promising energy and economic help could help convince the isolated nation to step away from its nuclear programs entirely; it could also provide the nonproliferation and energy security benefits that have eluded the region for so long. These economic benefits could motivate the other nations involved in the six-party talks to deal with North Korea more than if only nuclear reactors were offered.     

朝核问题对中国边境安全的影响

朝核问题一直是困扰东北亚地区安全的核心问题,自20世纪90年代第一次朝核危机至今．朝核问题不但没有得到妥善解决,反而更加复杂。2006年10月9日,朝鲜宣布成功进行了地下核试验,朝鲜半岛再一次成为全球关注的焦点。在前人研究的基础上,就朝核问题产生的背景,朝核问题对中国边境地区经济、地区稳定以及生态环境等方面产生的影响进行分析和探讨。