The Korean Peninsula remains one of the most complex security problems in the world today. The conflict on the Korean Peninsula has not yet been brought to an end, because of the war that has not yet been ended, the division of ideologies and the geographical and strategic legacy of the Cold War. Here, the author seeks to examine sustainable peace on the Korean Peninsula in the context of the structural problems and to offer an alternative perspective on denuclearisation, regime change and conflict management. Specifically, the author contends that, for sustainable peace on the Korean Peninsula, denuclearisation maximalism and regime-change are to be problematised and superseded by a realistic recognition of North Korea’s nuclear status as a part and condition of that country’s very survival and of its accompanying external relations. A regionally-based conflict management system should be developed and operated with the aid of an external middle power that is impartial and acceptable to the two Koreas and to the four major outside stakeholders, namely the U.S., China, Japan and Russia. While such a recognition does not legitimise nuclear proliferation, it does take account of the deep historical and structural problems that have hitherto rendered absolute and fanatical policy objectives on the Korean Peninsula unable to be realised and which have led to a cycle of mutual escalation and failed dialogue instead.

Dividing the Korean Peninsula and creating the two Koreas was not a matter for the two Koreas. Instead, it was a result of the Cold War power politics between the United States and the Soviet Union imposed on the Korean Peninsula,........

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