On October 7thfrom 9:30-11:00 A.M. KST, the first joint APLN/EAF Webinar, funded in part by the Asia Research Fund, titled “Preemptive Nuclear Attacks on the KoreanPeninsula: Fact or Fiction?” was livestreamed. Moderated by Dr. Chung-in Moon,the webinar featured Dr. Morton H. Halperin (SeniorAdvisor to the Open Society Foundation and the Open Society Policy Center), Dr.Peter Hayes (Co-director at the Nautilus Institute), Dr. Siegfried Hecker(Professor and Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Center for International Securityand Cooperation), and Dr. Eunjung Lim (Associate Professor at Kongju NationalUniversity). The panelists discussed military and nuclear issues on the Koreanpeninsula, with special attention paid to claims made in Bob Woodward’s latestbook, Rage. The panel outlined the history of U.S. nuclear doctrine andDPRK’s nuclear capabilities, and ultimately concluded that discussion of theuse of “80 nuclear weapons” on the Korean peninsula is a supremely unlikelyworst case. Finally, they warned of the risks of misunderstanding and mistakesthat could escalate into a nuclear exchange. To prevent such a catastrophe, thepanelists agreed that diplomacy needs to embrace a step-by-stepconfidence-building process, in order to make nuclear threats less necessaryfor deterrence or compellence on both sides.