ABSTRACT
The end of the Cold War – one of the turning points in recent international history – separates the 1994 crisis on the Korean peninsula that almost culminated in a U.S. preventive strike against North Korea’s nuclear installations from older cases. It allows enhancing the cross-case comparison with a more recent example, one not overshadowed by global bipolar competition. The limited availability of hard evidence from the inside debates of the Clinton administration, which often remains classified, is a necessary downside of the most recent case in this study. Unavoidably, certain details of the administration’s planning remain unclear. Yet the seriousness of the crisis should not be underestimated. At the end of the day, there was the somewhat similar lesson of Osiraq, now seen in an entirely new light. By 1994, with the availability of the 1991 Gulf War experience, the American condemnation of the Osiraq destruction completely changed into a widespread appreciation of the attack. It is of little surprise that the possibility of launching a preventive strike against the Yongbyon nuclear complex was dubbed the Osiraq option.
