One of the key challenges of our time is the threat posed to the security of Northeast Asia by North Korea's nuclear proliferation. Efforts to resolve this problem through the medium of a six-party negotiation are proceeding with great difficulty. As in any multilateral process, a major problem is understanding the goals and perspectives of each of the participants. One of those participants is Russia, and this monograph focuses upon Moscow's perspectives with regard to North Korea's nuclear program and Russia's own standing in Northeast Asia. This monograph makes a valuable contribution to the debate or analysis of the difficult issues connected with North Korea's nuclear proliferation because the views of Russia, and of the other participants in those negotiations, unfortunately are not well-known or readily available in the United States. This monograph by two South Korean experts on Russia was presented at a colloquium jointly sponsored by the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) of the U.S. Army War College; the Ellison Center for Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies at the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington; and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Pacific Northwest Center for Global Studies. Entitled "The U.S. and Russia: Regional Security Issues and Interests," the conference was held in Washington, DC, from April 24-26, 2006. It represents part of SSI's efforts to provide strategic leaders with analysis and background on major trends in international security.