North Korea’s nuclear program remains the central Korean Peninsula security challenge, requiring a mix of deterrence, risk-reduction, and diplomacy since denuclearization is viewed by Pyongyang as an existential threat.

Short-term steps should focus on verifiable limits on nuclear activities in exchange for security guarantees and conditional incentives, while avoiding any formal recognition of North Korea as a nuclear-armed state.

A revived Six-Party framework involving the U.S., South Korea, North Korea, China, Russia, and Japan is proposed to pair strengthened deterrence with crisis management, conditional sanctions relief, and humanitarian measures.

The Korean Peninsula, a narrowly contested piece of territory in Northeast Asia, is one of the world’s more complex security problems. A division of land and peoples for over 60 years, with nuclear proliferation, great power conflict, and military alignment among the key factors, it is a security problem that transcends the inter-Korean relationship.

A solution will require the involvement of multiple actors, including North Korea, ROK, USA, China, Russia, and Japan. A stability-oriented framework for dealing with Korean Peninsula security issues would thus need to include a mix of deterrence, nuclear risk-reduction measures, engagement, and multilateral diplomacy.

The biggest security challenge on the Korean Peninsula is the nuclear weapons program of North Korea under Kim Jong Un. It has greatly increased the threat to the security of South Korea and Japan while at the same time testing the limits of the extended deterrence of the US. For North Korea, nuclear weapons are seen as a necessity for the survival of the regime. Thus, while Washington and its allies pursue denuclearization of North Korea as their objective for negotiations, denuclearization is seen by Pyongyang as an existential threat. Sanctions and military pressure so far have not brought any change in this perception. Denuclearization has........

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