In this policy brief, Peter Hayes analyses the five key elements of the Biden-Yoon Washington Declaration: Biden’s threat to eliminate the DPRK regime, the end of nuclear and conflict resolution negotiations, a US-ROK presidential hotline, a NATO-style “strategic scenario planning,” and nuclear signaling.

Yoon’s January 2023 nuclear proliferation demarche and the US response to it have made the Korean Peninsula, the region, and the world more insecure whilst doing nothing to actually reduce the risk of nuclear war posed by the DPRK’s accelerating nuclear weapons program. The United States and its allies remain in strategic drift in Northeast Asia, and the risk of nuclear war – and its cataclysmic humanitarian consequences – is increasing with each day that passes without substantial nuclear arms control dialogues, preventive diplomacy, and nuclear risk reduction measures.

About the Author

Peter Hayes is Director of the Nautilus Institute and Honorary Professor at the Centre for International Security Studies at the University of Sydney, and Senior Research Advisor of the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network.

This report was originally published on NAPSNet Policy Forum, 29 April 2023: https://nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnet-policy-forum/dissecting-the-washington-declaration/ This report is published under a 4.0 International Creative Commons License the terms of which are found here.

The views represented herein are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Nautilus Institute, APLN, their respective staffs, or boards.