Kasarinlan: Philippine Journal of Third World Studies, Vol 18,
No 1 (2003)  Font Size:  Small  Medium  Large  Making Sense of
the Korean Crisis: Interview with Gavan McCormack  Gavan
McCormack   Northeast Asia is a major zone of conflict in the
post-9/11 world order though it has attracted less analytical
attention than the Middle East for obvious reasons. The world
saw an escalation of the tension between the United States and
North Korea in late 2002 when, after the latter’s withdrawal
from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the two
countries began threatening each other with outright war. After
President Bush’s branding of North Korea as a “terror state” and
a member of the so-called “axis of evil”, the relationship
between the two countries has since deteriorated markedly,
obliterating whatever gains achieved by the Clinton
administration to normalize the US’s relations with North Korea.
In an agreement reached with the Clinton presidency, North Korea
agreed to shelve its nuclear and missile prog