This essay identifies actors, motivations, and social forces driving and sustaining the deeply entrenched conflicts underlying the nuclear and missile crisis on the Korean Peninsula. It also explores the applicability of the methods of conflict transformation to the crisis in order to find a practical way forward. Diplomatic and civil society exchanges designed to re-frame the past, present, and future-oriented discourses of historical conflict are considered to support long-term reconciliation as well as practical short-term measures. To illustrate long-term visions, the feasibility of institutionalizing the two Koreas' peaceful coexistence under a Korean commonwealth, the establishment of a legal and symbolic framework to definitively end the Korean War, and the development of an East Asian Security Organization modelling after the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) are explored.

An earlier version of this essay was presented in East Asian peace and security conferences in Beijing and Shanghai in 2007. The essay is written in Japanese.