Future Uncertainty and Nuclear Weapons: South Africa’s Denuclearization and Its Implications for North Korea’s Nuclear Retention (2026.06)
- 저자 : 임상수
- 학술지명 : Journal of North Korea Studies
- 발행처 : 고려대학교 세종캠퍼스 공공정책연구소
- 권호 : Vol.12, No.1
- 게재년월 : 2026년 6월
초록: How can a security-based approach account for South Africa’s denuclearization in the early 1990s, and how can it be applied to explain North Korea’s nuclear retention? Building on security-based explanations of denuclearization, this paper specifies threat reduction by focusing on its durability, defined by whether a perceived decline in threat reflects a significant and not readily reversible weakening of the adversary’s material capacity, rather than temporary policy shifts or diplomatic engagement. Using the process-tracing method, the paper argues that South Africa’s denuclearization reflected Pretoria’s assessment that the regional communist threat had undergone a durable decline as a result of Soviet retrenchment. Applied to North Korea, this framework suggests that Pyongyang is unlikely to undertake full denuclearization in the foreseeable future because the threat posed by the United States has not undergone a durable decline, despite periods of engagement that temporarily eased Pyongyang’s threat perceptions. The findings refine security-based explanations of nuclear behavior and offer policy implications for South Korea’s pursuit of North Korean denuclearization.