Although most of North Korea's northern border is shared with China, a small strip of that border actually touches the edge of Russia near the northeastern-most area of the country. To the south lies South Korea, and the two countries split the peninsula roughly in half at the famous 38th parallel, which marks the demilitarized zone between each country (Kim, North Korea at the Crossroads 180)
As a result, North Korea sits at one of the globe's centers of power even though North Korea itself is not usually considered a superpower by any means, despite its relative success in developing nuclear weapons. Although nearby mainland China features a number of different climates, North Korea is largely made up of mountainous or rocky terrain, and in fact the country's "hostile climate, bad soil conditions, elevated terrain and shorter growing seasons" have come to define the country as its political and social goal of self-sufficiency runs up against the practical realities of agriculture in such an inhospitable environment (Schwekendiek 133)
This strategy calls for giving priority to military issues over everything else and the DPRK constitutes the most militarized state on earth measured by a variety of indicators." (Scobell and Sanford, 2007, p
North Korean WMD It is reported that the United States, in October 2002, "confronted North Korea about its alleged clandestine uranium enrichment program." (Squassoni, 2004, p
State Department, 2009). The country is widely believed to be a nuclear power, having declared itself as such in 2005 (Faiola, 2005)
S. wishes to reduce North Korea's nuclear capacity, slow its pace of technological development and place focus on otherwise containing the threat (Kirk, 2009)
(CNN) According to Bruce Cumings, author of Korea's Place in the Sun, preparations were being made for Kim Jong Il's succession in the 70s, and by 1973, he was already involved party organizational work. (Cumings 409) Kim Jong Il assumed the title "Dear Leader" and the government "began spinning a personality cult around him patterned after that of his father, the 'Great Leader'" (CNN)
North Korea (the Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea, or DPRK). In January of 2003, North Korea has withdrawn from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (Chanda and Evans, 2003; Kyong-Soo Kim)
In January of 2003, North Korea has withdrawn from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (Chanda and Evans, 2003; Kyong-Soo Kim). In addition, North Korea has developed long-range missiles, and recent reports suggest that the country is now the "world's largest proliferators of ballistic missile technology" (Kyong-Soo Kim)
S. To have at least one nuclear weapon, an extensive chemical weapons stockpile and a biological arsenal (Bray, 2003)
Despite its adversarial relationship with North Korea, the U.S. is its largest supplier of food aid (Cohen, 2002)
Gradually, however, North Korean workers begin to identify with the company, and a level of trust is developed between the South Korean executives and the North Korean managers and workers." (Nanto and Manyin, 2008) There has historically been such violations of workers rights in the interactions between North and South Korea
A specific KIC Labor Law was drafted and adopted to govern the rights of workers employed by enterprises in the KIC." (Human Rights Watch, 2008) it is stated to be accepted generally that it is prohibited by North Korea for political opposition or independent civil society to be organized
He included North Korea in this blanket statement, and his immediate and apparently total willingness to enter into negotiations marks a radical departure from the attitude of the current administration. Under President Bush, no negotiations were held with what was considered to be the rogue state of North Korea until 2006, when that country's underground detonation of a nuclear device forced Bush to move to the negotiating table (Beck 2008, par
But here, the value of this analogy with Korea and its fellow Axis of Evil nations ends, for unlike other nations, North Korea is unique in its insularity as a society, which makes some of Breen's research difficult and means that many of its citizens have never been exposed to the West. Breen makes some intriguing statements about the nature of North Korean society, such as the fact that despite America's understandable obsession with the nation's nuclear development, average Koreans are not very interested in the expansion of nuclear power, because they are struggling to survive (Breen 39)
By excluding it from the world community, no matter how much America might dislike its policies, this only makes North Korea's search for legitimacy through nuclear power all the more desperate and destabilizing. It might be assumed that President Bush did not wish to defame only Islamic nations, which would have seemed politically incorrect in the eyes of Muslims at home and in the eyes of Arab nations from whom the United States requires assistance in curtailing terrorism and also in gaining crucial stocks of affordable crude oil, when he included North Korea in his infamous short list (Runkel, 2007)
Army which comprises the bulk of the United Nations' military forces that have been assigned to the region since the end of the Korea Conflict (Catchpole 1998; Shuja 2002). In addition, North Korea's growing nuclear capability include missiles that apparently possess the capability to deliver warheads to Hawaii, and it is reputed to be exporting nuclear technology to other pariah states that could be used to attack the United States and its interests abroad (Auton 2007)
Indeed, Kim Jong Il has clearly stated that further sanctions by the United Nations would be regarded as a declaration of war and North Korea fields the world's third-largest conventional army, not to mention its growing nuclear capability, and can back up its hyperbolic rhetoric with fierce military action, at least in the short-term. The six-party talks that have sought to defuse this precarious situation have failed in their entirety to remedy the problem and policymakers at home and abroad are shaking their heads in collective disbelief as North Korea continues to test bigger and better missiles, some of possess the ability to carry nuclear warheads as far as Hawaii (Barry 2007)
S. Army which comprises the bulk of the United Nations' military forces that have been assigned to the region since the end of the Korea Conflict (Catchpole 1998; Shuja 2002)
S. intelligence community to gauge the country's progress has been criticized at home and abroad (Dorn 2005)