US-North Korean Relations: Classifications Based on Policy Decisions and Their Effect on the Korean Peninsula

The relationship between America and North Korea is wavering between confrontation and communication depending on the policy choices of President Obama and Kim Jong Il. To have a realistic outlook upon the situation, it would be of significant value to categorize the relationship and to determine the South Korean government's countermeasures based on these categories. Based on the U.S.-North Korea relationship, four categories can be extracted. Soft-line and hard-line policies are possible political choices, and scenarios will be put forward based on a mixture of the two. South Korea's response to each category is reviewed in this paper.