Page 25 - Trilateral Korea Japan U.S. Cooperation

Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo argues that Trilateral
Cooperation is Essential to Deter Pyongyang and Dissuade
Beijing. Akiyama believes the security environment in
Northeast Asia is becoming increasingly challenging for Japan
as well as the United States and its allies. Japanese security
authorities and communities have been highly concerned
about the adverse impact that China’s growing missile and
nuclear capabilities would have on the military balance as
well as those of North Korea. Above all, the increase in
military power by China and North Korea, coupled with
the buildup and diversification of nuclear capabilities and
entanglements across domains, including new domains
such as cyber and space and cognitive domains such as
disinformation operations, have created a complex hybrid
strategic environment. With the buildup of nuclear forces, the
risk of changing the status quo through hybrid warfare in the
presence of nuclear weapons is higher than ever.

Scott Snyder, President and Chief Executive Officer at the
Korea Economic Institute of America in Washington DC
also examines South Korea-Japan-U.S. Cooperation: How to
Deter North Korea and Convince China (Chapter Thirteen).
He believes both the strategic situation around the Peninsula
and the trajectory of inter-Korean relations are in flux, and
the overall trend lines are adverse to longstanding U.S. efforts
to achieve “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization
(CVID).” If anything, the U.S.-North Korea nuclear standoff
has grown even more intractable as the aims of both countries
have become more diametrically opposed. Both sides continue
a battle to change the strategic environment to produce an
outcome favorable to their own interests, primarily through

24 Section I : North Korea-China Relations: How and Why Does Beijing Protect and Empower Pyongyang?