In June 1994 the United States went to the brink of war with North
Korea. With economic sanctions impending, President Bill Clinton
approved the dispatch of substantial reinforcements to Korea, and plans
were prepared for attacking the North's nuclear weapons complex. The
turning point came in an extraordinary private diplomatic initiative by
former President Jimmy Carter and others to reverse the dangerous
American course and open the way to a diplomatic settlement of the
nuclear crisis.
Few Americans know the full details behind this story or perhaps realize
the devastating impact it could have had on the nation's post-Cold War
foreign policy. In this lively and authoritative book, Leon Sigal offers
an inside look at how the Korean nuclear crisis originated, escalated,
and was ultimately defused. He begins by exploring a web of intelligence
failures by the United States and intransigence within South Korea and
the International Atomic Energy Agency. Sigal pays particular attention
to an American mindset that prefers coercion to cooperation in dealing
with aggressive nations. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with
policymakers from the countries involved, he discloses the details of
the buildup to confrontation, American refusal to engage in diplomatic
give-and-take, the Carter mission, and the diplomatic deal of October
1994.
In the post-Cold War era, the United States is less willing and able
than before to expend unlimited resources abroad; as a result it will
need to act less unilaterally and more in concert with other nations.
What will become of an American foreign policy that prefers coercion
when conciliation is more likely to serve its national interests? Using
the events that nearly led the United States into a second Korean War,
Sigal explores the need for policy change when it comes to addressing
the challenge of nuclear proliferation and avoiding conflict with
nations like Russia, Iran, and Iraq. What the Cuban missile crisis was
to fifty years of superpower conflict, the North Korean nuclear crisis
is to the coming era.
