The recently concluded two day Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul (March 26-27) ended with a promise to meet again. It was a follow-up to the first summit in Washington and participants will gather in the Netherlands in 2014 for what will be the third (and final) global summit of its kind. As the name suggests, the focus of the 2012 summit was ‘nuclear security’, a term not to be confused with nuclear plant safety or nuclear safeguard rules set by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).  In simple terms, ‘nuclear security’ is an effort to prevent the use of an atomic bomb by terrorists or illicit actors and provide security against nuclear terrorism. To this end the key participating countries pledged …

In the wake of the rather premature death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il at the age of 69, North Korea is expected to enter a period of violent turmoil and power struggle. Kim’s heir apparent is his youngest son Kim Jung-un, who is perhaps too young in his twenties and too inexperienced in political and military affairs to receive natural respect from his fellow Koreans, particularly in the context of a socialist Confucian culture. In the expected battle royal, he will face a strong rival in his uncle Jang Seong-taek, whose wife is Kim Jong-il’s only sister and who has a strong link to the military leadership through his elder brothers (one of them, Jang Seong-U, was the commander …