Disarming Strangers: Nuclear Diplomacy with North Korea [Hardcover]

Leon V. Sigal (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0691057974 | ISBN-13: 978-0691057972 | Publication Date: December 8, 1997 | Edition: First Edition. 1 in number line

In June 1994, the USA went to the brink of war with North Korea. Withj economic sanctions impending, President Clinton approved the dispatch of substantial reinforcements to Korea and plans were made for attacking the North's nuclear weapons complex. The turning point came in an extraordinary private diplomatic initiative by former President 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 or realize the devastating impact such an event could have had on the US's post-Cold War foreign policy. This book offers an inside look at how the crisis originated, escalated and was diffused. It begins by exploring a web of intelligence failures by the US and intransigence within South Korea and the International Atomic Energy Agency, paying particular attention throughout to an American mindset that prefers coercion to co-operation in dealing with aggressive nations. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with policy-makers from the countries involved, the author 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.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

The story deftly told in this weighty but engaging book may seem unfamiliar, says the author, because "key parts...never appeared in the news." Sigal (Fighting to a Finish, LJ 6/15/88) drew up the New York Times editorials about Korea under Presidents Bush and Clinton and accordingly thought he knew what had happened. Nevertheless, he discovered the inside story only when he visited major players and reviewed key documents (many reproduced here) for this book. Realpolitik policies of unilateral coercion failed, argues Sigal, partly because of South Korea's intransigence and U.S. intelligence snafus. Negotiations led by Jimmy Carter, however, went from the brink of war in 1994 to "open covenants, privately arrived at." Sigal offers disturbing and enlightening insights into the reasons why news coverage left this critical story untold, how "cooperating with strangers" replaced coercion in "getting to yes," and the significance of this liberal challenge to "realism" in dealing with nuclear crisis. Recommended for all public affairs and international relations collections.?Charles Hayford, Univ. of Illinois at Chicago
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Sigal makes it disturbingly clear how close the world came to war in Korea in 1994. The product of hundreds of interviews, Disarming Strangers is also the most rigorously detailed account of U.S. policy towards North Korea yet published, and it will remain so for many years.... An important and superbly researched book. -- Michael J. Mazarr, Survival



This is a thought-provoking and disturbing book on American and North Korean diplomatic relations. Disarming Strangers is also an extremely well-researched study. -- Bill Drucker, Korean Quarterly
--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 321 pages
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr; First Edition. 1 in number line edition (December 8, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691057974
• ISBN-13: 978-0691057972
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,348,069 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars North Korea is not Canada, October 25, 2000

By 

[e-mail] (Seoul, Korea) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Disarming Strangers (Paperback)

There are some good aspects of this book analysing the ins and outs (mostly outs) of United States policy toward North Korea and its nuclear program. But the book has one enormous drawback: it treats everything that the United States and its allies did with suspicion, while giving North Korea every benefit of the doubt. I did not understand the expression "blame America first" until I read this book. There is nothing in this book about North Korean terrorism or attacks on the South Korean Blue House. Mr. Sigal treats North Korea as if it were Canada. It is not. His good points would come through better if he was not so one-sided.

6 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Track 2 and Cooperation are good for nuclear starangers, November 17, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Disarming Strangers: Nuclear Diplomacy with North Korea (Hardcover)

Bias on the part of American policy-makers affected U.S. nuclear diplomacy toward North Korea. If the U.S. would not have maintained such a bias, negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea would not have been as difficult. That is the author`s main point, but what he overlooks is not an analysis of why U.S. policy-makers, from the begining of Korean War and beyond, maintained a bias, This drawback notwithstanding, the book contains many interviews and documents, and is, therefore, a historically important study.