The election of Barrack Obama was a remarkable event in many ways. Not only was the election of a black, Democratic president a domestic milestone, but it was a potentially transformative moment for foreign policy, too. The administration of George W. Bush was responsible for some of the most divisive and counter-productive foreign policies of recent times. The standing and authority of the US had been steadily undermined as a consequence. It is clear that the election of Obama has already seen a dramatic improvement in sentiment toward the US around the world, something that bodes well for the US's ‘soft power’ and influence. One might expect, therefore, that US policymakers will once again be able to assert themselves in East Asia, a region in which the US has had a powerful presence and influence since the Second World War. While the region is not unique in this regard—the US as the world's sole remaining superpower has been a major factor in the development of every other region, too—East Asia's post-war trajectory, both as the epicentre of international wars between 1945 and 1975, and as a rapidly advancing economic region throughout the era, has been especially marked by American influence. Indeed, East Asia's recent development history, its intra-regional relations and its place in the overall international system might have been profoundly different were it not for its engagement with the United States.

For the past few years, international travelers leaving Japan's major airports have been confronted with a written instruction as they queue in front of the passport control booths. Displayed only in Japanese, and thus aimed specifically at a domestic audience, the instruction informs Japanese people that they should “voluntarily refrain” [jishuku suru] from visiting North Korea [the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, DPRK]. This is part of the package of sanctions which was imposed on North Korea by the Japanese government in 2006, following the DPRK's nuclear test, and which have remained in place ever since.

Environmental protection in the Korean DMZ is purely accidental. In 1953, no one gave a thought to protecting wildlife when a temporary truce halted the fighting there. Instead, North and South Korea and their respective allies wanted only to end the human savagery that had killed 10 percent of the peninsula's civilian population and resulted in military casualties numbering, on one side, 900,000 Chinese and 520,000 North Korean troops, and, on the other, 400,000 United Nations troops. The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea backed by the Soviet Union and the Chinese invaded South Korea in an attempt to reunify the nation, a nation divided in the last days of World War II. The 1953 truce, still in effect today, created a narrow no-man's land roughly along the 38th parallel where no army is supposed to go. Although called the Demilitarized Zone or DMZ, this thin ribbon of territory is decidedly militarized. As the American GIs there say, “there ain't no D in the DMZ.” Unlike every other inch of dry land on the planet besides Antarctica, the Korean DMZ falls outside the control of any single military or any single nation. It is truly a no-man's land. Reckless human violence has necessitated the evacuation of all human beings, and the unintended result is a zone left free for other species. Although the consequences of the continued low-grade war have been tragic for humans, other creatures have flourished because of our relative absence.