REGIONAL SECURITY. LESSONS FROM THE LATEST KOREAN CRISIS Since the end of 2012, the situation on the Korean Peninsula has once again escalated as a result of new missile and nuclear weapons tests in the DPRK and large-scale US-South Korean maneuvers in the Yellow Sea. This escalation was marked by particularly bellicose statements and some actions of Pyongyang and the demonstration of American strategic weapons during the exercises. What is behind the "spring escalation" and what does the course of the young leader of the DPRK Kim Jong-un promise? Some aspects of the current situation on the Korean Peninsula are discussed in the articles of E. M. Rusakov, a columnist for the magazine "Asia and Africa Today" on the problems of East and South Asia, and O. V. Kiryanov, a correspondent for Rossiyskaya Gazeta, a graduate student at the Moscow State University Institute of International Relations. E. M. RUSAKOV Candidate of Historical Sciences Korean Peninsula Keywords:, North Korea, Kim Jong Un, escalating tensions, Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions, US-South Korean maneuvers The latest tests of missile and nuclear weapons in the DPRK marked the beginning of a new round of tension on the Korean peninsula. The crisis was exacerbated by the US-South Korean exercises and Pyongyang's response, which appears to have been "retaliatory" only outwardly, but in reality was the result of a well-thought-out policy aimed at achieving the main goal of establishing North Korea as a nuclear power and eliminating the few restrictions that were achieved at the six-party denuclearization talks Of the Korean Peninsula*. It is no coincidence that the main chords of the grandiose Pyongyang " performance "were the self-declaration of the DPRK as a" nuclear power " and the decision to resume the operation of the Yongbyon (Nyongbyon) nuclear center, which was suspended in 2007, including the plutonium production reactor. At the same time, the North Korean KCNA news agency noted that the Yongbyon co ... Read more