Report of the International Study Group on North Korea Policy
The FAS International Study Group on North Korea Policy convened to develop a strategy toward a North Korea that will in all likelihood remain nuclear-armed and under the control of the Kim family for the next two decades. The composition of the group reflects a conviction that a sustainable and realistic strategy must draw on the expertise of new voices from a broader range of disciplines coordinating across national boundaries—and cannot be met by replicating outdated assumptions and methods. In the pages that follow, the study group issues recommendations to the United States and its allies—most directly South Korea and Japan, but also to countries in Europe, Southeast Asia, and Oceania who hold broadly shared objectives even as they prioritize issues of specific national concern.
A military depot in central Belarus has recently been upgraded with additional security perimeters and an access point that indicate it could be intended for housing Russian nuclear warheads for Belarus’ Russia-supplied Iskander missile launchers.
The Indian government announced yesterday that it had conducted the first flight test of its Agni-5 ballistic missile “with Multiple Independently Targetable Re-Entry Vehicle (MIRV) technology.
While many are rightly concerned about Russia’s development of new nuclear-capable systems, fears of substantial nuclear increase may be overblown.
Despite modernization of Russian nuclear forces and warnings about an increase of especially shorter-range non-strategic warheads, we do not yet see such an increase as far as open sources indicate.