Official U.S. Reports on North Korea


Book Description

Two excellent reports are reproduced in this book: Military and Security Developments Involving the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and North Korea's Nuclear Weapons Development and Diplomacy. Military and Security Developments Involving the Democratic People's Republic of Korea - latest available report to Congress pursuant to the National Defense Authorization Act from the Department of Defense (DoD). Contents: Executive Summary * Chapter One: Assessment Of The Security Situation * Key Developments In North Korean And Peninsular Security North Korean Security Perceptions * Chapter Two: Understanding North Korea's Strategy * Strategic Goals * National Strategy * Regional Objectives And Behavior * Chapter Three: The Capabilities And Modernization Goals Of North Korea's Military Forces * Overview * An Aging Force...With Emerging Capabilities * Chapter Four: Weapons Of Mass Destruction * Programs And Proliferation * North Korea's Weapons Of Mass Destruction (WMD) Programs * Proliferation * Conventional Arms And Missile Sales Nuclear Proliferation Interdicted Transfers. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea) remains one of the most critical security challenges for the United States and the broader international community. In particular, North Korea's willingness to undertake provocative and destabilizing behavior, including attacks on the Republic of Korea (ROK), its continued development of nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles, and its proliferation of weapons in contravention of United Nations Security Council resolutions (UNSCRs) pose a serious threat to the United States, the region, and the world. Since assuming control in December 2011, Kim Jong Un has solidified his grip on power by embracing the coercive tools used by his father and grandfather. His regime has used force and the threat of force combined with inducements to quell domestic dissent and strengthen internal security; co-opt the North Korean military and elites; develop strategic military capabilities to deter external attack; and challenge the ROK and the U.S.-ROK Alliance. In April 2013, Kim announced the "byungjin" policy, which emphasizes the parallel development of the country's economy and nuclear weapons program, to reinforce his regime's domestic, diplomatic, economic, and security interests. North Korea's Nuclear Weapons Development and Diplomacy - North Korea's Nuclear Test and Withdrawal from the Six Party Talks * Bush Administration-North Korean Agreements and Failure of Implementation * Implementation Process * Verification Issue * Kim Jong-il's Stroke and Political Changes Inside North Korea * Issues Facing the Obama Administration * North Korea's Nuclear Programs * Plutonium Program * Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) Program * International Assistance * Nuclear Collaboration with Iran and Syria * North Korea's Delivery Systems * State of Nuclear Weapons Development




Crs Report for Congress


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North Korea: Terrorism List Removal Congressional Research Service Summary The issue of North Koreas inclusion on the U.S. list of terrorism-supporting countries has been a major issue in U.S.-North Korean diplomacy since 2000, particularly in connection with negotiations over North Koreas nuclear program. North Korea demanded that the Clinton and Bush Administration remove North Korea from the terrorism support list. On June 26, 2008, President Bush announced that he was officially notifying Congress of his intent to remove North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism after the 45 calendar-day notification period to Congress as required by U.S. law. The White House stated an intention to remove North Korea on August 11, 2008. This announcement was part of the measures the Bush Administration took on June 26 to implement a nuclear agreement that it negotiated with North Korea in September 2007 and finalized details of in April 2008 at a U.S.-North Korean meeting in Singapore. The President also announced that he was immediately lifting sanctions on North Korea under the U.S. Trading with the Enemy Act. North Koreas obligations under this nuclear agreement are to allow the disabling of its plutonium facility at Yongbyon and present to the ...




Nuclear Nonproliferation


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North Korea


Book Description

North Korea has presented one of the most vexing and persistent problems in U.S. foreign policy in the post-Cold War period. The United States has never had formal diplomatic relations with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (the official name for North Korea), although contact at a lower level has ebbed and flowed over the years. Negotiations over North Korea's nuclear weapons program have occupied the past three U.S. administrations, even as some analysts anticipated a collapse of the isolated authoritarian regime. North Korea has been the recipient of over $1 billion in U.S. aid (though none since 2009) and the target of dozens of U.S. sanctions.




Testing North Korea


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This Independent Task Force Report addresses the challenges of balancing diplomacy and deterrence in this next critical stage on the Korean peninsula.




North Korea


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North Korea: U. S. Relations, Nuclear Diplomacy, and Internal Situation


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North Korea has presented one of the most vexing and persistent problems in U.S. foreign policy in the post-Cold War period. The United States has never had formal diplomatic relations with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (the official name for North Korea), although contact at a lower level has ebbed and flowed over the years. Negotiations over North Korea's nuclear weapons program have occupied the past three U.S. administrations, even as some analysts anticipated a collapse of the isolated authoritarian regime. North Korea has been the recipient of over $1 billion in U.S. aid (though none since 2009) and the target of dozens of U.S. sanctions. This report provides background information on the negotiations over North Koreaâe(tm)s nuclear weapons program that began in the early 1990s under the Clinton Administration. As U.S. policy toward Pyongyang evolved through the 2000s, the negotiations moved from a bilateral format to the multilateral Six-Party Talks (made up of China, Japan, Russia, North Korea, South Korea, and the United States). Although the negotiations reached some key agreements that laid out deals for aid and recognition to North Korea in exchange for denuclearization, major problems with implementation persisted. The Six-Party Talks have been suspended throughout the Obama Administration. As diplomacy remains stalled, North Korea continues to develop its nuclear and missile programs in the absence of any agreement it considers binding. Security analysts are concerned about this growing capability, as well as the potential for proliferation to other actors. After Kim Jong-il's death in December 2011, his youngest son, Kim Jong-un, has consolidated authority as supreme leader. Bilateral agreements with the United States in February 2012 involving the provision of aid and freezing some nuclear activities fell apart after Pyongyang launched a long-range ballistic missile in April 2012. Prospects for negotiations dimmed further after another, more successful, launch in December 2012 and a third nuclear test in February 2013. In response to new U.N. sanctions, Pyongyang sharply escalated its rhetoric and took a number of provocative steps. The U.S. reaction included muscular displays of its military commitments to defend South Korea and moves to bolster its missile defense capabilities. Since this flare in tensions, North Korea has expanded its diplomatic outreach with Japan, South Korea, and Russia. The release in late 2014 of three U.S. citizens who had been detained in North Korea also may have removed one obstacle to restarting dialogue with the United States. As ties with China apparently cooled, Pyongyang appeared to be seeking to avoid diplomatic isolation as well as to reduce its almost total economic dependence on China. Simultaneously, international attention to North Koreaâe(tm)s human rights violations intensified at the United Nations, drawing Pyongyangâe(tm)s concern and protests. North Korea is already under multiple international sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council in response to its repeated missile and nuclear tests.




Crs Report for Congress


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North Korea's decisions to restart nuclear installations at Yongbyon that were shut down under the U.S.-North Korean Agreed Framework of 1994 and to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty create an acute foreign policy problem for the United States. Restarting the Yongbyon facilities opens up a possible North Korean intent to stage a "nuclear breakout" of its nuclear program and openly produce nuclear weapons. North Korea's actions follow the reported disclosure in October 2002 that North Korea is operating a secret nuclear program based on uranium enrichment and the decision by the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) in November 2002 to suspend shipments of heavy oil to North Korea. North Korea claims that it has nuclear weapons and that it has completed reprocessing of 8,000 nuclear fuel rods. U.S. officials in 2004 stated that North Korea probably had reprocessed most or all of the fuel rods and may have produced 4-6 atomic bombs from them. The main objective of the Bush Administration is to secure the dismantling of North Korea's plutonium and uranium-based nuclear programs. Its strategy has been: (1) terminating the Agreed Framework; (2) withholding any U.S. reciprocal measures until North Korea takes visible steps to dismantle its ...




The North Korean Conundrum


Book Description

North Korea is consistently identified as one of the world’s worst human rights abusers. However, the issue of human rights in North Korea is a complex one, intertwined with issues like life in the North Korean police state, inter-Korean relations, denuclearization, access to information in the North, and international cooperation, to name a few. There are likewise multiple actors involved, including the two Korean governments, the United States, the United Nations, South Korea NGOs, and global human rights organizations. While North Korea’s nuclear weapons and the security threat it poses have occupied the center stage and eclipsed other issues in recent years, human rights remain important to U.S. policy. The contributors to The North Korean Conundrum explore how dealing with the issue of human rights is shaped and affected by the political issues with which it is so entwined. Sections discuss the role of the United Nations; how North Koreans’ limited access to information is part of the problem, and how this is changing; the relationship between human rights and denuclearization; and North Korean human rights in comparative perspective.




American Trophies


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The story of American heroes kept by our country's enemies and Washington's failure to recover them reads like a cross between "The Manchurian Candidate" and "Foreign Affairs." It uncovers decades of secrets and incompetence, right up to the Obama Administration, and reveals how Moscow, Beijing, and Pyongyang continue to thwart America today. Filled with previously secret documents and photos. Based on years of research around the world by an investigative historian and former Special Forces officer teamed with the POW/MIA expert son of a missing Korean War flyer, it is by turns both enthralling and upsetting. This book rips the lid off the one of the most disturbing scandals in modern US history. As you read the book, join our community to help with investigations the Pentagon and CIA can't -- or won't -- do themselves. Decipher names on declassified documents, track down Chinese and Russian officials and identify POWs in captured enemy film: cynicalattitude.com A "fascinating, disturbing and important book...America has to read it: " Sydney Schanberg, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and inspiration for the Academy Award-winning film "The Killing Fields." Wall Street Journal: "Independent researcher Mark Sauter and John Zimmerlee, the son of a missing-in-action U.S. Air Force serviceman, argue in a new e-book, that U.S. incompetence, combined with a desire to downplay the issue amid on-again-off-again negotiations with North Korea, have trumped the military's 'no man left behind' imperative. The two men also say that there is some evidence that American soldiers may still be alive in North Korea today..." Associated Press: "Mark Sauter, a private researcher and co-author with John Zimmerlee of 'American Trophies and Washington's Cynical Attitude, ' an e-book about POWs to be published this month, found in government archives a U.S. intelligence report from August 1955, two years after the war, calling for a bigger intelligence effort to learn about such POW transfers." Drudge Report: "Book: USA left POWs behind in NKorea, China, Russia..." The Washington Free Beacon: "The book, American Trophies: How American POWs Were Surrendered to North Korea, China, and Russia by Washington's 'Cynical Attitude, ' includes numerous cases of missing Americans from the Korean War, along with several from the Cold War and Vietnam War. It is based on years of research, interviews, and documents by the authors, Sauter and John Zimmerlee. Declassified intelligence reports obtained by the authors reveal that Americans were being held captive in China, North Korea, and the Soviet Union at least through the 1990s." Includes information on Korean War POWs in North Korean, Chinese and Soviet prisons; Vietnam War POWs reportedly taken to North Korea; Chinese espionage; North Korean/DPRK "salting" of American remains; KGB exploitation of US POWs; North Korea human rights/DPRK human rights; communist torture and brainwashing; Cold War history; covert action (requested by the Air Force Chief of Staff to rescue American POWs the year after the war ended); Korean War special operations; Cold War spy flights; Korean War history; Truman Administration; F-86; US-China conflicts; Soviet prison system, the Gulag; World War II prisoners of war, including German and Japanese POWs who reported Americans in Siberia; North Korean prison camps; North Korean military and government; Freedom of Information Act; North Korean agents; escapes; espionage; real-life adventures; real-life mysteries; B-29; new information on the Eisenhower Administration; F-51; Obama Administration mismanagement; National Archives; declassification and secrecy; the Punch Bowl; JPAC; 2nd ID; DPMO; Pentagon secrets; CIA operations; military intelligence collection; Korean DMZ; North Korean abductions; Stalin; Chou En-lai; US defectors; surveillance flights; and untold US diplomatic history.