Andrew Mack, ‘Nuclear Endgame on the Korean Peninsula’, IR Working Paper 1994/9, Canberra: Department of International Relations, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, December 1994.

This paper offers an in-depth examination of the October US/North Korea ‘Agreed Framework’ which has been hailed on both sides as a resolution to the nuclear issue on the Korean peninsula. The paper sketches the background to the agreement before analysing its various elements. It concludes that, although not a good agreement, it is probably the best that could have been negotiated in the circumstances. The paper’s conclusion is that the most important element of the agreement is that it keeps the DPRK in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and prevents what might otherwise have been a major expansion of its nuclear weapons program. The agreement buys time, and time is not on the North’s side.