Abstract
North Korea's missile launch in August 1998 represented a continued DPRK threat to regional stability, but progress was made in addressing security concerns through engagement. Arguably, the US and South Korea have derived key policy lessons: the need to employ balanced policies of engagement and containment and balanced use of economic and military power; the value of coordination of bilateral, trilateral and multilateral strategies towards the North; the importance of keeping Japan on board the engagement strategy as a major long-term source of economic assistance to the North. This paper argues that Tokyo abandoned a balanced approach in each of the key policy lessons and shifted erratically between dialogue and deterrence. The result was to create Japan-US and Japan-ROK friction and threaten to undermine the Perry process. Major lessons: Japan's concerns about North Korea have quickened the remilitarization of its security policy; its continued security concerns may lead it to abandon again the engagement strategy and undermine the Perry process and sunshine policy; Japan's “strategy-less strategy” between 1998 and 1999 and its loss of policy balance may serve as a warning to the Kim Dae-jung administration that perceived over-reliance on engagement, economic power, bilateral approaches, and an impatient grab for reunification could threaten Japan-US-South Korea trilateral cooperation.