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North Korea's Yongbyon Nuclear Complex: A Report by Siegfried S. Hecker

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Excerpt: "On November 12, during my most recent visit to the Yongbyon Nuclear Complex with Stanford University colleagues John W. Lewis and Robert Carlin, we were shown a 25 to 30 megawatt-electric (MWe) experimental light-water reactor (LWR) in the early stages of construction. It is North Korea's first attempt at LWR technology and we were told it is proceeding with strictly indigenous resources and talent. The target date for operation was said to be 2012, which appears much too optimistic."

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Siegfried S. Hecker

Shorenstein APARC experts take part in "North Korea 2010" forum

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Joyce Lee
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An international forum on North Korea was held in Palo Alto on October 26, 2010, in an effort to educate the public on reunifying the two Koreas. The San Francisco Chapter of the National Unification Advisory Council organized the forum. Approximately 150 audience members heard panelists speak about the economic, social, and political challenges that face South Korea today in its preparation for a peaceful reunification, as well as about their visions for the future of North Korea.

Gi-Wook Shin, the director of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), moderated the presentations and the panel discussion. The panel of four experts included John Everard, 2010-2011 Pantech Fellow at APARC and a former British ambassador to North Korea, speaking about diplomacy and security; Greg Scarlatoiu, director of public affairs and business issues at the Korea Economic Institute, on economic issues; Sang-Hun Choe, 2010-2011 Fellow in Korean Studies at APARC and a reporter at the International Herald Tribune, on factionalism; and Jung Kwan Lee, the South Korean Consul General in San Francisco, on South Korea's policy toward North Korea.

Everad analyzed North Korea's development during the Cold War of a diplomatic technique by which it repeatedly attempted to play one ally off against another in its relationships with the Soviet Union and China. While arguing that North Korea continues to make effective use of this technique against South Korea, the United States, and the European Union, Everad noted that North Korea's current political uncertainty, following the succession, and its ongoing economic concerns will together create a situation in which it may be very difficult for North Korea to maintain political solidarity.

Scarlatoiu, meanwhile, contended that North Korea's is a post-Stalinist, neo-patrimonial economy. Thus, with recent efforts such as the 2002 market reforms and the 2009 currency reform, the North Korean regime has found itself confronted with a major dilemma. According to Scarlatoiu, while economic reforms are necessary to the long-term survival of the regime, they could also lead to the regime's collapse. This predicament, he added, must be considered as the regime undergoes a leadership transition in the succession to Kim Jong-un.

Choe spoke on the process of succession to Kim Jong-un as well, pointing out that while Kim Jong-un is indisputably the heir to the leadership of North Korea, he has yet to prove his competency as North Korea's future leader. In addition, Choe emphasized that difficulties judging North Korea's intentions and anticipating its behavior stem from the outside world's inability to understand the North Korean leadership and the goals that it truly has in mind.

Finally, Lee stressed that the basic objectives of South Korea's policy on North Korea are to promote a common prosperity and to peacefully resolve North Korean nuclear issues. However, he also made it clear that the South Korean government is seeking to keep North Korean nuclear issues distinct from the issue of inter-Korean relations.

 

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Nonproliferation Policy Crossroads: The Strange Case of U.S.-India Nuclear Cooperation

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Gerald Warburg earned his BA in Political Science and Education at Hampshire College and MA in Political Science at Stanford in 1979, where he worked closely with CISAC fellows. He is now Executive Vice President of Cassidy & Associates, a prominent public affairs firm in Washington DC, and has served as a visiting professor at Georgetown University, Penn, Stanford, and Hampshire. He has also recently been appointed Professor of Practice of Public Policy at the University of Virginia’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. Warburg has more than a decade of experience as a senior aide to members of both the U.S. House and Senate leadership. As Legislative Assistant to U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Alan Cranston on Trade, Defense, and Foreign Policy, he coordinated the Senator’s work on the Committees on Foreign Relations, Intelligence, and the International Finance and Monetary Policy Subcommittee of the Banking Committee. Previously, Mr. Warburg served as Legislative Assistant for Energy, Environment and Trade issues to U.S. Representative Jonathan B. Bingham, Chairman of the International Economic Policy and Trade Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Mr. Warburg was also an aide to U.S. Senator John Tunney on the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy. He is the author of Conflict and Consensus: The Struggle Between Congress and the President Over Foreign Policymaking (Harper & Row, 1989), and a novel (about Stanford China scholars) entitled The Mandarin Club, (Bancroft Press, 2006).

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Siegfried S. Hecker

CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C220
Stanford, CA 94305-6165

(650) 725-6468 (650) 723-0089
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Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Emeritus
Research Professor, Management Science and Engineering, Emeritus
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Siegfried S. Hecker is a professor emeritus (research) in the Department of Management Science and Engineering and a senior fellow emeritus at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). He was co-director of CISAC from 2007-2012. From 1986 to 1997, Dr. Hecker served as the fifth Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Dr. Hecker is an internationally recognized expert in plutonium science, global threat reduction, and nuclear security.

Dr. Hecker’s current research interests include nuclear nonproliferation and arms control, nuclear weapons policy, nuclear security, the safe and secure expansion of nuclear energy, and plutonium science. At the end of the Cold War, he has fostered cooperation with the Russian nuclear laboratories to secure and safeguard the vast stockpile of ex-Soviet fissile materials. In June 2016, the Los Alamos Historical Society published two volumes edited by Dr. Hecker. The works, titled Doomed to Cooperate, document the history of Russian-U.S. laboratory-to-laboratory cooperation since 1992.

Dr. Hecker’s research projects at CISAC focus on cooperation with young and senior nuclear professionals in Russia and China to reduce the risks of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism worldwide, to avoid a return to a nuclear arms race, and to promote the safe and secure global expansion of nuclear power. He also continues to assess the technical and political challenges of nuclear North Korea and the nuclear aspirations of Iran.

Dr. Hecker joined Los Alamos National Laboratory as graduate research assistant and postdoctoral fellow before returning as technical staff member following a tenure at General Motors Research. He led the laboratory's Materials Science and Technology Division and Center for Materials Science before serving as laboratory director from 1986 through 1997, and senior fellow until July 2005.

Among his professional distinctions, Dr. Hecker is a member of the National Academy of Engineering; foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences; fellow of the TMS, or Minerals, Metallurgy and Materials Society; fellow of the American Society for Metals; fellow of the American Physical Society, honorary member of the American Ceramics Society; and fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

His achievements have been recognized with the Presidential Enrico Fermi Award, the 2020 Building Bridges Award from the Pacific Century Institute, the 2018 National Engineering Award from the American Association of Engineering Societies, the 2017 American Nuclear Society Eisenhower Medal, the American Physical Society’s Leo Szilard Prize, the American Nuclear Society's Seaborg Medal, the Department of Energy's E.O. Lawrence Award, the Los Alamos National Laboratory Medal, among other awards including the Alumni Association Gold Medal and the Undergraduate Distinguished Alumni Award from Case Western Reserve University, where he earned his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in metallurgy.

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Defining success through positive development

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 I gained my definition of success through Stanford . . .

 -Makoto Takeuchi, 2004-2005 Corporate Affiliates Program fellow

When Makoto Takeuchi came to the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) as a Corporate Affiliates Program fellow during the 2004-2005 academic year, he was working as a senior manager with the Business Development Group of Kansai Electric Power Company, located in Osaka, Japan. Osaka, part of Japan's Kansai region, is a bustling metropolis and an important economic and historical center of Japan. Kansai Electric Power Company is a large energy company that utilizes a combination of energy sources, including nuclear power, which makes up over 50 percent of its power supply, as well as thermal (oil, coal, and liquid natural gas) and hydropower.

Takeuchi found the environment of Stanford University, including its situation in Silicon Valley, stimulating. "I was excited by the diversity and speed of dynamic innovation in Silicon Valley, and the people who utilize their knowledge and skills in order to achieve their dreams," he said. Drawing from this, he carried out a research project exploring complementary strategies for sustainable corporate growth. He concluded that such sustainable growth comes from a balance of internal and external resources and short- and long-term gains, driven by innovation, integration, and interaction.

During his time at Shorenstein APARC, Takeuchi also developed his understanding of working as a part of a team on a project. "I learned that the success of projects requires orchestrating the talents and efforts of many people," he said. He now applies his knowledge of teamwork to the work that he does today, including the essential skill of communicating with colleagues from different cultural and professional backgrounds. Being sensitive to the values of others is crucial when it comes to collaboration, he learned.

Prior to coming to Stanford University, Takeuchi had not yet defined his own idea of "success." He now measures success by the positive impact that he has on society, which to him is evidenced by the "smiles on the faces of my customers, stakeholders, and family." Takeuchi has the opportunity to effect positive economic and energy development in his new position as a senior energy specialist with the World Bank's East Asia Sustainable Development Department. "When I considered how I could make the most of my skills . . . the answer was to provide clean energy through a sophisticated power system with renewable energy and to contribute to what people in the region really want," he explained. In his role with the World Bank, Takeuchi is working toward increasing access to cleaner energy and laying the foundation for sustainable growth in developing countries, and, of course, to gain smiles in the process.

For current and future Corporate Affiliates fellows, Takeuchi imparts the wisdom: "As soon as possible, you should discover the criteria for evaluating your own success. Then, you should just run toward it!"

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