North Korea and the Science of Provocation

North Korea and the Science of Provocation
Author: Robert Daniel Wallace
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2016-02-03
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0786499699

Why does North Korea routinely turn to provocation to achieve foreign policy goals? Are the actions of the volatile Kim regime predictable, based on logical responses to the conditions faced by North Korea? This book, an examination of the "Hermit Kingdom" over the past 50 years, explains why the Democratic People's Republic of Korea uses hostility and coercion as instruments of foreign policy. Using three case studies and quantitative analysis of more than 2,000 conflict events, the author explores the relationship between North Korea's societal conditions and its propensity for external conflict. These findings are considered in light of diversionary theory, the idea that leaders use external conflict to divert attention from domestic affairs. Analyzing the actions of an isolated state such as North Korea provides a template for conflict scholarship in general.

Laughing North Koreans

Laughing North Koreans
Author: Immanuel Kim
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 169
Release: 2020-06-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 179360830X

This study analyzes North Korean comedy films from the late 1960s to present day. It examines the most iconic comedy films and comedians to show how North Koreans have enjoyed themselves and have established a culture of humor that challenges, subverts, and, at times, reinforces the dominant political ideology. The author argues that comedy films, popular comedians, and the viewers have an intricate interdependent relationship that shaped the film culture—the pre/post production of filmmaking, film-watching experience, and the legacies of actors—in North Korea.

The United States and the Korean Peninsula in the 21st Century

The United States and the Korean Peninsula in the 21st Century
Author: Tae-Hwan Kwak
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2006
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780754648130

This volume examines the political, security and economic aspects of the relations between the US and both the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The volume focuses in particular on the current status, salient issues and future prospects.

Tyranny of the Weak

Tyranny of the Weak
Author: Charles K. Armstrong
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 526
Release: 2013-06-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 0801468930

To much of the world, North Korea is an impenetrable mystery, its inner workings unknown and its actions toward the outside unpredictable and frequently provocative. Tyranny of the Weak reveals for the first time the motivations, processes, and effects of North Korea’s foreign relations during the Cold War era. Drawing on extensive research in the archives of North Korea’s present and former communist allies, including the Soviet Union, China, and East Germany, Charles K. Armstrong tells in vivid detail how North Korea managed its alliances with fellow communist states, maintained a precarious independence in the Sino-Soviet split, attempted to reach out to the capitalist West and present itself as a model for Third World development, and confronted and engaged with its archenemies, the United States and South Korea. From the invasion that set off the Korean War in June 1950 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Tyranny of the Weak shows how—despite its objective weakness—North Korea has managed for much of its history to deal with the outside world to its maximum advantage. Insisting on a path of "self-reliance" since the 1950s, North Korea has continually resisted pressure to change from enemies and allies alike. A worldview formed in the crucible of the Korean War and Cold War still maintains a powerful hold on North Korea in the twenty-first century, and understanding those historical forces is as urgent today as it was sixty years ago.

The Real North Korea

The Real North Korea
Author: Andrei Lankov
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2015
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199390037

In The Real North Korea, Lankov substitutes cold, clear analysis for the overheated rhetoric surrounding this opaque police state. Based on vast expertise, this book reveals how average North Koreans live, how their leaders rule, and how both survive

North Korea in Transition

North Korea in Transition
Author: Kyung-Ae Park
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2013
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1442218126

Following the death of Kim Jong Il, North Korea has entered a period of profound transformation laden with uncertainty. This authoritative book brings together the world's leading North Korea experts to analyze both the challenges and prospects the country is facing. Drawing on the contributors' expertise across a range of disciplines, the book examines North Korea's political, economic, social, and foreign policy concerns. Considering the implications for Pyongyang's transition, it focuses especially on the transformation of ideology, the Worker's Party of Korea, the military, effects of the Arab Spring, the emerging merchant class, cultural infiltration from the South, Western aid, and global economic integration. The contributors also assess the impact of North Korea's new policies on China, South Korea, the United States, and the rest of the world. Comprehensive and deeply knowledgeable, their analysis is especially crucial given the power consolidation efforts of the new leadership underway in Pyongyang and the implications for both domestic and international politics. Contributions by: Nicholas Anderson, Charles Armstrong, Bradley Babson, Victor Cha, Bruce Cumings, Nicholas Eberstadt, Ken Gause, David Kang, Andrei Lankov, Woo Young Lee, Liu Ming, Haksoon Paik, Kyung-Ae Park, Terence Roehrig, Jungmin Seo, and Scott Snyder.

Nuclear North Korea

Nuclear North Korea
Author: Victor D. Cha
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2018-09-11
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0231548249

Victor D. Cha and David C. Kang’s Nuclear North Korea was first published in 2003 amid the outbreak of a lasting crisis over the North Korean nuclear program. It promptly became a landmark of an ongoing debate in academic and policy circles about whether to engage or contain North Korea. Fifteen years later, as North Korea tests intercontinental ballistic missiles and the U.S. president angrily refers to Kim Jong-un as “Rocket Man,” Nuclear North Korea remains an essential guide to the difficult choices we face. Coming from different perspectives—Kang believes the threat posed by Pyongyang has been inflated and endorses a more open approach, while Cha is more skeptical and advocates harsher measures, though both believe that some form of engagement is necessary—the authors together present authoritative analysis of one of the world’s thorniest challenges. They refute a number of misconceptions and challenge the faulty thinking that surrounds the discussion of North Korea, particularly the idea that North Korea is an irrational actor. Cha and Kang look at the implications of a nuclear North Korea, assess recent and current approaches to sanctions and engagement, and provide a functional framework for constructive policy. With a new chapter on the way forward for the international community in light of continued nuclear tensions, this book is of lasting relevance to understanding the state of affairs on the Korean peninsula.

Confronting Security Challenges on the Korean Peninsula

Confronting Security Challenges on the Korean Peninsula
Author: Marine Corps Press
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2018-01-21
Genre:
ISBN: 9781984056450

The Korean Peninsula was and is in a state of flux.More than 60 years after the war that left the country divided, the policies and unpredictability of the North Korean regime, in conjunction with the U.S. alliance with South Korea and the involvement of China in the area, leave the situation there one of the most capricious on the globe. Confronting Security Challenges on the Korean Peninsula presents the opinions from experts on the subject matter from the policy, military, and academic communities. Drawn from talks at a conference in September 2010 at Marine Corps University, the papers explore the enduring security challenges, the state of existing political and military relationships, the economic implications of unification, and the human rights concerns within North and South Korea. They also reiterate the importance for the broader East Asia region of peaceful resolution of the Korean issues.

North Korean Military Proliferation in the Middle East and Africa

North Korean Military Proliferation in the Middle East and Africa
Author: Bruce E. BechtolJr.
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2018-09-07
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0813175909

North Korea has posed a threat to stability in Northeast Asia for decades. Since Kim Jong-un assumed power, this threat has both increased and broadened. Since 2011, the small, isolated nation has detonated nuclear weapons multiple times, tested a wide variety of ballistic missiles, expanded naval and ground systems that threaten South Korea, and routinely employs hostile rhetoric. Another threat it poses has been less recognized: North Korea presents a potentially greater risk to American interests by exporting its weapons systems to other volatile regions worldwide. In North Korean Military Proliferation in the Middle East and Africa, Bruce E. Bechtol Jr. analyzes relevant North Korean military capabilities, what arms the nation provides, and to whom, how it skirts its sanctions, and how North Korea's activities can best be contained. He traces illicit networks that lead to state and nonstate actors in the Middle East, including Syria, Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas, and throughout Africa, including at least a dozen nations. The potential proliferation of nuclear and chemical weapons technology and the vehicles that carry it, including ballistic missiles and artillery, represent a broader threat than the leadership in Pyongyang. Including training and infrastructure support, North Korea's profits may range into the billions of dollars, all concealed in illicit networks and front companies so complex that the nation struggles to track and control them. Bechtol not only presents an accurate picture of the current North Korean threat—he also outlines methodologies that Washington and the international community must embrace in order to contain it.

Apocalypse

Apocalypse
Author: Charles B. Strozier
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2002-09-09
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1592440436

By some estimates, as many as fifty million Americans believe that the Apocalypse - when God will remake the world, Jesus will return to rule, and only the faithful will survive - is near. In Apocalypse, psychoanalyst and historian Charles B. Strozier offers a rare and intimate look at the inner lives of such believers through a study of fundamentalist Christians in New York City today.