PUBLICATIONS & REPORTS

Contents Introduction

The Year of the Cow dawns signaling many changes in the world affairs as U.S. welcomes the arrival of Barack Obama Presidency. North Korea will likely face new bargaining chips from the new president, although yet there are many uncertainty on the future of the Korean Peninsula. This paper will look into new environments ahead of North and South Korea as well as the required measures for the South to take if the Big Bang occurs in the North. After many years of rapprochement efforts failed in resulting in any fruits between two Koreas, “inter-Korean cooperation and talks without conditions” encounter serious loss of confidence on their usefulness and effectiveness. The South’s economic assistance as well as DPRK-US diplomatic relations, if established, may surely ensure the Pyongyang sustain in short-term. But in the long run the outcome will either undermine North Korea or in worst case help Pyongyang manage to retain its grip for extended periods if its military can control “possible implosion” by the masses. This paper suggests that extraneous supports for quick “implosion” is preferred to “extension” of the longevity of ill-founded paranoid regime in North Korea.