On the Brink

Van Jackson is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Victoria University of Wellington, and the Defence and Strategy Fellow at the Centre for Strategic Studies. He served in the Obama administration as a policy adviser and strategist in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, participating in nuclear negotiations with North Korea and formulating deterrence policies with South Korea.

• Introduction; 1. The inheritance of Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un in Korea; 2. North Korean strategic thoughts and risks of nuclear war; 3. The Obama era: from engagement to deterrence; 4. History's hinge point: the Clinton counterfactual; 5. President Trump and maximum pressure strategy; 6. Mimicking Pyongyang; 7. On the brink of nuclear war; 8. When will the war break out?; 9. How the crisis ended; 10. The risks of nuclear war.

'Van Jackson has written an insightful, detailed, and frightening history of the Korean nuclear crisis. It is like a thriller with the sequel yet to be written. Readers will understand both how deeply dangerous the past few years have been and how many nuclear dangers remain lurking just over the horizon.' Scott D. Sagan, author of The Limits of Safety