KPA

The Passing of Kim Jong-il: North Korea Still Mired in “Charismatic Politics”

By | December 17, 2012

Charisma is hard to obtain and harder to retain. It is also ephemeral. Kim Jong-un wants it, has some, but needs more. Roger Cavazos starts watching the sky in the first of our anniversary extravaganza.

Game of Battleships: A Commentary on the History and Future of the Northern Limit Line Disputes

By | October 13, 2012

Mycal Ford surveys the turbulent waters around the disputed Northern Limit Line, probing for contemporary and historical clues about the possibility for renewed inter-Korean hostility.

Korean Peninsula: Distinguishing Rhetoric from Reality

By | August 01, 2012

Roger Cavazos examines what a renewed outbreak of hostilities would actually look like along the arms-clogged waist of the Korean peninsula. Includes link to an extensive illustrated working paper.

Pirates or Hawks: Who Hijacked the Chinese Fishing Boats?

By | May 29, 2012

Pirates or Hawks: Who Hijacked the Chinese Fishing Boats? by Leonid Petrov China often describes its relations with North Korea, its closest regional ally, as intimate but not substantial. For more than half a century, Beijing’s attitude towards the Korean peninsula has revolved around the avoidance of three scenarios: ‘No new war on the Korean […]

In My Father’s House There Are Many Bunkers: Assessing the Kim Jong Un Speech

By | May 13, 2012

Kim Jong Un’s pre-centennial speech to the WPK, admonishing the functionaries to hold his grandfather and father — now the eternal General Secretary of the WPK — in high esteem, occurred in what are anything but thriving times.  In North Korea, such behavior is the continuation of an old tradition.[1]  The April 15 speech, analyzed […]