North Korea’s fourth test of a nuclear device on February 6 and its rocket launch four weeks later in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions have caused a new sense of crisis on the Korean Peninsula. As if the tests themselves weren’t sufficiently provocative, Pyongyang is now claiming to have a hydrogen bomb and is threatening, if challenged, to launch a nuclear attack on both the United States and its ally South Korea. Whatever the exact state of North Korea’s capabilities, the tests underlined two basic facts: Pyongyang’s apparent determination to continue its efforts until it can indeed one day credibly threaten the United States with nuclear attack, and the international community’s resolve never to accept North Korea as a nuclear weapons state.

 

The international community responded with unprecedentedly tough sanctions against Pyongyang. On March 2, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 2270. It targets the hard currency that Pyongyang desperately needs to realize its byeongjin strategy of simultaneously trying to grow its economy and continuing nuclear weapons development. In addition, a number of countries, including the United States and Japan, introduced their own new bilateral sanctions. Perhaps most dramatically, South Korea on February 10 effectively permanently closed its decade-long joint North-South industrial park in the city of Kaesong in North Korea. It was the last project putting significant amounts of South Korean cash into the hands of the North Korean leadership.

 

North Korea’s response to the international community has included issuing even more threats, testing a series of new missiles, and sentencing an American college student to fifteen years’ imprisonment, allegedly for trying to filch a propaganda poster.

 

 

In an interview with Radio Free Asia, Straub discusses the background and implications of the recent defections to South Korea of workers in North Korea's restaurants in China.

 

In an interview with the University of Virgina's student newspaper, Straub discusses North Korea's imprisonment of UV student Otto Warmbier for allegedly attempting to steal a poster inscribed with the slogan "Let's firmly arm ourselves with Kim Jong-il patriotism!” Straub explains how the alleged offense fits in with the cult of personality surrounding the Kim Il Sung family dynasty.

 

In the aftermath of North Korea’s latest nuclear test, Straub joined Stanford colleagues in analyzing its import and discussing possible policy responses, in an interview published by the Stanford Report.

 

In an interview with South Korean newspaper Segye Ilbo (in Korean) immediately following North Korea’s latest nuclear test, Straub argued that South Korea had the stature and ability to lead the international community in imposing greater costs on North Korea. His recommendations included considering closing the Kaesong industrial park.

Straub told Voice of America’s Korea Service (in Korean) that the new UN Security Council sanctions reflected years of preparation by the Obama administration and would significantly increase the psychological pressure on North Korea’s leaders to abandon their pursuit of nuclear weapons.

 

In an interview featured on the front page of Chosun Ilbo (in Korean), South Korea’s biggest newspaper, Straub supported South Korean President Park’s controversial decision to close the Kaesong industrial park in North Korea.

 

Straub told Associated Press that North Korea’s proposal for a peace treaty with the United States was a non-starter in Washington as long as Pyongyang continued to pursue nuclear weapons.

 

In the wake of North Korea's sentencing of University of Virginia student Otto Frederick Warmbier to fifteen years' imprisonment of hard labor for allegedly trying to steal a propaganda poster, Straub talked with a reporter from the University of Virginia's student newspaper about the case. Straub draws on his experience of leading the office of Korean affairs at the U.S. Department of State to discuss the conditions faced by Americans incarcerated in North Korea as well as North Korean intentions.