North Korea’s nuclear test

North Korea’s nuclear test serves several purposes. Its first purpose is to bolster the flagging legitimacy of the regime and, by drumming up war hysteria, achieve domestic mobilization in the face of mounting internal difficulties. Throughout North Korea’s turbulent history, the regime has periodically resorted to war hysteria, at times on even grander scale than what we have recently seen. North Korea’s Songun (army-first) policy requires periodic crises to maintain the myth of enemy encirclement and the army prestige. If history is any judge, the North Koreans will step away from the brink when their domestic aims have been achieved

US-Russian relations and disarmament

Conclusion of a nuclear arms deal has infused US-Russian relations with a new sense of optimism reminiscent of the late 1980s amid indications that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s bid to “reset” relations with Moscow has borne fruit, and the phantom of a new “Cold War,” perceived by gloomy pundits in recent times, has faded at last. It is as if Washington and Moscow have resolved to resume their relationship from a historic point it had reached before Russia, convulsed by post-Soviet agony of defeat and impotence, spoiled America’s triumphant nineties with mean barking in Eastern Europe and devious plots, hatched in partnership with China, to ruin US-led new world order. Obama and Medvedev can stand tall shoulder-to-shoulder as once Gorbachev and Reagan had stood before a dawn of new partnership, and a promising future for the world

'Red on white': Kim Il Sung, Park Chung Hee, and the failure of Korea's Reunification, 1971-1973

The articles argues that in 1971–1973 North Korea’s leader Kim Il Sung used the Sino-American rapprochement and the Soviet-American détente to pursue Korean reunification on his terms; his aim was to ‘democratize’ and then ‘revolutionize’ South Korea and so achieve through dialogue what he failed to achieve through militancy. Kim’s game was based on a misreading of the political dynamics in South Korea and on misplaced confidence in North Korea’s attractiveness. He also misjudged his ability to obtain China’s and the USSR’s backing for his schemes

Lost chance for peace: The 1945 CCP-Kuomintang peace talks revisited

This article reconsiders the 1945 Chongqing peace talks between the Kuo-mintang and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a key turning point on the road to the Chinese civil war. The article shows that the talks represented a lost opportunity to avert the slide into fratricidal warfare. The CCP leader, Mao Zedong, under pressure from Iosif Stalin, was prepared to compromise with his rival Chiang Kai-shek on the basis of dividing China into two separately administered territories (roughly, north and south). Chiang was unwilling to consider such a step, which from his perspective was unpatriotic. His resistance to the division of China doomed the talks and precipitated the outbreak of war

The Sino-Russian relationship in the mirror of the Cold War

This article uses a constructivist lens to discuss the history of the relationship between Beijing and Moscow from 1949 to the present. It argues that the dramatic shifts in this relationship can be understood in reference to mutual perceptions of China and Russia by their political elites in the broader context of a global hierarchy dominated by the United States

Pavel Stroilov, "Behind the Desert Storm: a secret archive stolen from the Kremlin that sheds new light on the Arab revolutions in the Middle East"

The article reviews the book "Behind the Desert Storm: a secret archive stolen from the Kremlin that sheds new light on the Arab revolutions in the Middle East" by Pavel Stroilov

Mongolia in the 2016-17 electoral cycle: the blessings of patronage

This paper examines the full cycle of political power transitions and the dynamics of party competition during the 2016 parliamentary and 2017 presidential elections in Mongolia. It argues that the existence of multiple interlinked patronage networks and factionalism explains the persistence of the electoral democracy in Mongolia. The article focuses on the internal politics of the Democratic Party