The Obama administration’s policy toward North Korea: the causes and consequences of strategic patience

ABSTRACT

Strategic patience refers to the US foreign policy towards North Korea under the Obama administration. The administration has pursued the policy in dealing with North Korea for the most time since its start. This study starts with a puzzling question as to why the Obama administration has maintained the relatively passive policy towards North Korea for quite long time despite its strong and consistent military threats and provocations as represented by its weapons of mass destruction programmes. In answering the question, this attempts to review the main characteristics of the policy and to explain its causes and consequences with reference to major theories of international relations. Also, discussions of the future prospect on the policy will be made at the end.

KEYWORDS:

• US foreign policy
• Obama administration
• strategic patience
• North Korea
• Northeast Asian security

Notes

1. The mainstream perspective is that North Korea is actually short of being capable to attack the US continent as far as the technological dimension is concerned.