Reducing the Risk of Nuclear Weapons Use in Northeast Asia

Access the Virtual Special Issue Articles below

Introduction

This issue of Journal for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament presents the papers commissioned in 2021 to support the Project on Reducing the Risk of Nuclear Weapons Use in Northeast Asia (NU-NEA). The NU-NEA project was developed to study the risk contours and conflict terrain for war and nuclear escalation in and around the Korean peninsula. This study is being carried out in part by developing a set of plausible “use cases” for nuclear weapons in NEA, that is, cases in which a combination of nuclear weapons deployments, political, economic, or other circumstances in the region and/or internationally, and specific “triggering events” lead a state or non-state actor to detonate a nuclear weapon in the region (“first use”), followed by evolution of the nuclear conflict and its ultimate consequences.

The commissioned papers that informed use case preparation were prepared by a group of authors from many nations and backgrounds, spanning topics from the history of the division of the ROK and DPRK to ROK military strategy, ballistic missile inventories and capabilities, counterforce issues, and many others. Nuclear use cases have been developed not to suggest probable outcomes, but to identify plausible outcomes so that policies can be devised and implemented to avoid any use of nuclear weapons, with the ultimate project goal being “let Nagasaki be the last”. (For the Year 1 Report of the Project, Possible Nuclear Use Cases in Northeast Asia: Implications for Reducing Nuclear Risk, please see here.)

Virtual Special Issue Articles

Title	Author
Preface for Special Issue on Reducing the Risk of Nuclear Weapons Use in Northeast Asia (NU-NEA)	von Hippel, Hayes, Shetty, Suzuki and Yoshida
Counterforce Dilemmas and the Risk of Nuclear War in East Asia	Ian Bowers
Nuclear-Use Cases for Contemplating Crisis and Conflict on the Korean Peninsula	Paul K. Davis and Bruce W. Bennett
Korean Peninsula Nuclear Issue: Challenges and Prospects	Anastasia Barannikova
Prospects for DPRK's Nuclear Use Scenarios and Deterrence Measures of the US and ROK Alliance	Sangkyu Lee
Potential Use of Low-Yield Nuclear Weapons in A Korean Context	Eva Lisowski
The Deliberate Employment of United States Nuclear Weapons: Escalation Triggers on The Korean Peninsula	Daryl G. Press
Nuclear Weapons and Delivery Systems That Might Be Implicated in Nuclear Use Involving the Korean Peninsula	Matt Korda
The Role of Missile Defense in North-East Asia	David Wright
Towards Instability: The Shifting Nuclear-Conventional Dynamics in the Taiwan Strait	Sheryn Lee
US Entry into the Korean War: Origins, Impact, and Lessons	James I. Matray
Reducing or Exploiting Risk? Varieties of US Nuclear Thought and Their Implications for Northeast Asia	Van Jackson

About the Journal

The main mission of the Journal for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament, edited by the Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition, Nagasaki University (RECNA), is to contribute to furthering nuclear disarmament and peace based on both theoretical and practical studies.

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