North and South Korea Issues in Regional Context | Interests and Policy Dynamics in NEAsia

Eggers Hall, 341

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The Moynihan Institute’s East Asia Program presents Stephen Costello of George Washington University. 

The persistence of North Korea’s isolation and poverty continues to impact the region in multiple ways. It provokes and sustains the DPRK’s nuclear weapons and ICBM production. It encourages Kim Jong-un to intensify economic cooperation with China and Russia. It is a major justification for a regional arms race that is at least two decades old. 

How are the political and strategic interests of regional states and the U.S. adjusting to the latest developments? Russia’s war on Ukraine has sucked in North Korea as a provider of weapons and troops. The U.S.’s capacity for providing diplomatic or security goods to the region has hit a generational low. China is newly relieved of diplomatic and military pressures from outside and is economically vibrant, but its leaders remain risk averse.

Middle powers Japan and South Korea are both now relatively stable democracies. They have different strengths and weaknesses. Political structures, together with today’s leaders Sane Takaichi and Lee Jae-myung, present them with unfamiliar options. What can we expect from them as middle powers everywhere discover new flexibility and uncertainty?

Stephen Costello is a non-resident scholar at the Institute for Korean Studies at George Washington University and a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute. He directed the Korea in Transition program at the Atlantic Council from 1999 to 2003.

Since 1990 he has been a specialist on South Korean politics and foreign policy. Costello has been a political consultant, policy analyst, columnist and facilitator of U.S.-Korea dialogue. Working mainly in Washington and Seoul, he has run think tank programs and consulted with companies, embassies, government officials and former officials, academics and scholars in both capitals.

Category

Social Science and Public Policy

Type

Talks

Region

In-Person

Open to

All Students

Faculty and Staff

General Public

Organizer

Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs

Contact

Matt Baxter
315.443.2553

mhbaxter@syr.edu

Accessibility

Contact Matt Baxter to request accommodations

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