Going Critical: The First North Korean Nuclear Crisis (Paperback)

~ (Author) "FLYING OVER NORTH KOREA IN 1980, an American spy satellite spotted something alarming: the foundations of what would become a 5-megawatt nuclear reactor..." (more)
Key Phrases: new reactor project, plutonium production program, envoy exchange, North Korea, United States, South Korean (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"An essential tool for comparing today's events to the last round." -- Foreign Affairs

"GOING CRITICAL is the definitive account of the first North Korean nuclear crisis." -- William J. Perry, former Secretary of Defense

"Sure to captivate North Korea specialists and general readers alike." -- New York Times

Product Description

A decade before being proclaimed part of the "axis of evil," North Korea raised alarms in Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo as the pace of its clandestine nuclear weapons program mounted. When confronted by evidence of its deception in 1993, Pyongyang abruptly announced its intention to become the first nation ever to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, defying its earlier commitments to submit its nuclear activities to full international inspections.

U.S. intelligence had revealed evidence of a robust plutonium production program. Unconstrained, North Korea’s nuclear factory would soon be capable of building about thirty Nagasaki-sized nuclear weapons annually. The resulting arsenal would directly threaten the security of the United States and its allies, while tempting cash-starved North Korea to export its deadly wares to America’s most bitter adversaries.

In Going Critical, three former U.S. officials who played key roles in the nuclear crisis trace the intense efforts that led North Korea to freeze—and pledge ultimately to dismantle—its dangerous plutonium production program under international inspection, while the storm clouds of a second Korean War gathered. Drawing on international government documents, memoranda, cables, and notes, the authors chronicle the complex web of diplomacy—from Seoul, Tokyo, and Beijing to Geneva, Moscow, and Vienna and back again—that led to the negotiation of the 1994 Agreed Framework intended to resolve this nuclear standoff. They also explore the challenge of weaving together the military, economic, and diplomatic instruments employed to persuade North Korea to accept significant constraints on its nuclear activities, while deterring rather than provoking a violent North Korean response.

Some ten years after these intense negotiations, the Agreed Framework lies abandoned. North Korea claims to possess some nuclear weapons, while threatening to produce even more. The story of the 1994 confrontation provides important lessons for the United States as it grapples once again with a nuclear crisis on a peninsula that half a century ago claimed more than 50,000 American lives and today bristles with arms along the last frontier of the cold war: the De-Militarized Zone separating North and South Korea.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 474 pages
• Publisher: Brookings Institution Press (August 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0815793871
• ISBN-13: 978-0815793878
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,180,543 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lessons for the present and future, May 15, 2004

By	Don Oberdorfer (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Going Critical: The First North Korean Nuclear Crisis (Hardcover)

The three authors of Going Critical were important members of the U.S. team that negotiated the Agreed Framework with North Korea in 1993-94. Rather than considering the accord a failure because the DPRK ultimately undertook a secret uranium enrichment project, the authors argue persuasively that their handiwork postponed North Korean production of plutonium for eight years - from 1994 to 2002 - at relatively low cost to the U.S. and the international community.
The most important aspect of the book is not argument, however, but information. The authors give us a detailed, play-by-play account of U.S. decisions and actions in the negotiations with North Korea, going well beyond anything previously available. I wrote my own account of the DPRK nuclear program and the Agreed Framework negotiations in 63 pages in my book, The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History. Authors Wit, Poneman and Gallucci devote 408 pages to these developments, including a good deal of inside information that was previously unavailable. Outsiders, including historians, can continue to debate whether the U.S. negotiating team should have made the compromises it did in order to reach an agreement with North Korea. Now, at least, they can have some solid facts to undergird their opinions.
This is a major contribution to contemporary history. Beyond this, the final chapter includes lessons learned, as the authors apply them, for present and future dealings with North Korea regarding its dangerous and destabilizing nuclear weapons programs.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Their hard-hitting analysis of the current crisis in Korea , September 8, 2004

By	Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Going Critical: The First North Korean Nuclear Crisis (Hardcover)

Is a second Korean War looming on the horizon? Most likely, unless North Korea can be deterred from its ongoing campaigns, say Joel S. Wit, Daniel Poneman and Robert Gallucci in Going Critical. Their hard-hitting analysis of the current crisis in Korea includes a studied history of diplomatic and political events of the past, exploring the challenges of hard negotiations with North Korea to date. From cabinet meetings in Washington to Geneva talks and North Korean associations with China, Going Critical is a 'must' for any who would understand the latest issues and their ongoing implications for a nuclear crisis.

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Review of US Negotiations with North Korea, November 19, 2006

By	Paul Marc Oliu (Princeton, NJ) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Going Critical: The First North Korean Nuclear Crisis (Hardcover)

I picked "Going Critical" because of our current state of affairs and our own internal debate as tto how to effectively deal with North Korea. Their are many issues and items the book highlights, most importantly being how enigmatic, unpredictable and paranoid North Korea was during the 1990's. I suspect that the level of paranoia has only increased in light of the current US position toward the regime of Kim Jong Il.

It is striking how many nations, in particular Japan and s. Korea, most European nations, and to a lesser extent China and Russia are inclined to keep North Korea in a box, without Nuclear Weapons. The issue is the delicate balance of preventing Pyongyang from going nuclear without making them move their million man army across the 38th.

If you are into the inside baseball of diplomatic neotiations, this is certainly a book for you.