Prospects for War

Posted: November 2nd, 2015

By Gordon Chang

Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China and Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes On the World. Chang lived and worked in China and Hong Kong for almost two decades, most recently in Shanghai, as counsel to the American law firm Paul Weiss and earlier in Hong Kong as partner in the international law firm Baker & McKenzie. He has given briefings at the National Intelligence Council, the Central Intelligence Agency, the State Department, and the Pentagon, and appeared before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Follow him on Twitter @GordonGChang.

Twice last month, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea asked the United States of America to begin discussions on a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War. The problem, as Korea watcher Andrei Lankov has noted, is that Pyongyang does not want to include South Korea in the talks to end the war.

The Koreans know war, and they know tragedy. Last century, their country was colonized, annexed, and divided. Then, in June 1950, it became a battleground in a war that, despite an armistice, continues to this day.

“The Cipher Brief has become the most popular outlet for former intelligence officers; no media outlet is even a close second to The Cipher Brief in terms of the number of articles published by formers.” —Sept. 2018, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 62

Access all of The Cipher Brief’s national security-focused expert insight by becoming a Cipher Brief Subscriber+ Member.

Subscriber+