Policy Briefs on Peace and Security in Northeast Asia

What does citizenship mean in contemporary democratic societies as they become increasingly multicultural? Can dissent be used constructively to redefine the terms of engagement of minority groups with the state? This paper begins by recalling the grounds for political obedience in terms of the distinction between law and legitimacy. In the context of India under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it then briefly sketches the assertion of Hindu primacy in the 2014–19 years before examining the seminal events of 2019 and 2020, when protestors issued a clarion call on the conscience of the state to engage in dialogue with its citizens.

After three years of an erratic approach to North Korea, the Trump administration has made little progress in reducing the nuclear threat and enhancing peace and security on the Korean Peninsula. The Kim Jong Un regime not only maintains its stockpile of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, but these capabilities have grown both quantitatively and qualitatively. The next US president will have to address this grave situation. This Policy Brief examines what might work and outlines four steps on a practical path to building a new framework for peace and security on the Korean Peninsula. This article was first published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: https://thebulletin.org/2020/10/a-practical-approach-to-north-korea-for-the-next-us-president/

The Cold War-era weapons governance structures are no longer fit for purpose in contemporary equations where nuclear dyads have morphed into nuclear chains. In an increasingly polycentric global order, the dyadic nuclear arms control structure can neither regulate nor constrain the choices of other nuclear-armed states. Yet growing risks point to the urgent need to institutionalise a nuclear restraint regime fit for purpose in the Asia–Pacific. In this Policy Brief, Ramesh Thakur explores the merits of adapting the Open Skies Treaty and the Incidents at Sea Agreement from the North Atlantic to the Asia–Pacific, and, in the reverse direction, of universalising a no-first-use of nuclear weapons policy from China and India to all nine nuclear-armed states.

Until very recently, China has been seen as an important and constructive force in the crisis management in South Asia in the event of an India-Pakistan military crisis. However, due to the shifting power balance in the region and the trilateral interactions between China, the United States and India, this view has become increasingly challenged. China’s Belt and Road investments and infrastructure development is also likely to draw it into third-party crisis management. Although China is interested in preventing a nuclear war, its interest in crisis management is constantly subject to its definition of its national interest in the changing regional power balance and great power dynamics. With the deteriorating U.S.-China relations and great power competition, China’s instinct is to preserve its strategic leverage. In addition, with the border skirmishes between China and India continuing to flare up, China itself might become a party to the regional conflict.

The September 19 Military Agreement adopted by the two Koreas in 2018 is a modest but remarkable success in arms control history. Nevertheless, heated debates are taking place, both inside South Korea and abroad, over the legitimacy and rationality of the agreement. This policy brief analyses the true meaning of the September 19 Military Agreement between the two Koreas, to identify its problems and policy implications in order to draw up supplementary measures to implement it successfully. Furthermore, the paper draws some implications for the relationship between progress on North Korea's denuclearisation issue and further conventional arms control on the Korean Peninsula.