North Koreas Intelligence Community : A Vibrant Atmosphere

Kim Jong-Un, the First Chairman of the National Defence Commission, an ambitious and arrogant guy. His ambitious identity could be exposed from: ‘Threatening to fire his increasingly capable missiles toward the United States’ and ‘By declaring war on South Korea’ [Inside the mind of

North Korea, formally known as the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a relic of the Cold War and the world’s last remaining totalitarian Stalinist dictatorship. Arguably the most secretive state in the world, North Korea poses a unique set of challenges to the world, especially to its democratic and capitalist neighbor, South Korea, formally known as the Republic of Korea (ROK). As one of the last remnants of the Cold War era, North Korea remains an anomaly of the international system due to its unpredictable nature and disregard for international norms. With the recent bombardment of the South Korean Island of Yeongpyong and the sinking of the warship Cheonan, tensions between the two Koreas are at the lowest point since

There are a number of similarities between North Korea, The United States and China. That statement could be said about certain aspects of the three countries when looking purely at what is written on paper. According to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) World Fact Book all three countries have the essential three branches of government; executive, legislative, and judicial (2012). But it takes little effort to peel away the first layer and see the vast differences between The United States and the communist countries of China and North Korea. This paper is designed to peel away that second layer and reveal the differences between the communist countries of China and North Korea. By examining the aspects of how each country

North Koreas government uses its power to control information and restrict independent thought and freedom. The BBC News mentions, “North Koreas economic hardships or famines are not reported to the domestic audience” (North Korea’s Tightly Controlled Media). This shows how the government in North Korea uses their power to keep the inhabitants of the country blind to issues that would cause worry amongst them. The BBC News author later on mentions that rather than inform its citizens on real life issues occurring, they are informed of technological advances developed by their leaders’ revolutionary thinking. By doing this the North Korean government keeps the people blind and ignorant to complicated

In 2001 journalist, Barbara Demick, author of Nothing to Envy: Six Ordinary Lives in North Korea, moved to Seoul, South Korea as a correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, where she was to report over both North and South Korea. When she was in North Korea, Demick found it was immensely difficult to report anything as their trip was very closely monitored. They were assigned “minders” who would make sure that: no unauthorized conversations took place, that they visit specific monuments, and allowed no contact with ordinary citizens. While in South Korea, Demick began speaking with North Koreans who had defected and escaped to South Korea and China. As she spoke with the people who had defected, Demick uncovered what lied beneath the façade

Since its origin in 1948, North Korea has been isolated and heavily armed, with hostile relations with South Korea and Western countries. It has developed a capability to produce short- and medium-range missiles, chemical weapons, and possibly biological and nuclear weapons. In December 2002, Pyongyang lifted the freeze on its plutonium-based nuclear weapons program and expelled IAEA inspectors who had been monitoring the freeze under the Agreed Framework of October 1994. As the Bush administration was arguing its case at the United Nations for disarming Iraq, the world has been hit with alarming news of a more menacing threat: North Korea has an advanced nuclear weapons program that, U.S. officials believe, has already produced one or

Focus was shifted back to the “traditional geographic area of interests.” Around the same time period, United States and Soviet troops withdrew from both Koreas. The Soviet Union left a well-trained North Korean Army, along with aircraft and armor. Conversely, the Republic of Korea’s (South Korea) army was left with little training and light weapons from the United States. Yet, the United States did not completely abandon South Korea. They established a secret intelligence office in the capital that was responsible for collecting information on North Korea and their army. The reports provided by the Korean Liaison Office were used to help develop the CIA’s analytic reports. The analytic reports claimed that North Korea was a puppet to the Soviet regime and that the Soviet Union was the “controlling hand behind all North Korean political and military planning.” The reports established a theme that North Korea was controlled by the Soviet Union and would not attack without their assistance, essentially following the Soviet Union’s military precept of centralized control and centralized execution. With agreement from both China and the Soviet Union, North Korean started building up troops and equipment near the 38th parallel. Yet, the United States discounted the information due to the preconceived notion that North Korea was incapable of

Following the fall of the U.S.S.R., North Korea has almost directly become the empire of repression that George Orwell illustrated in Nineteen Eighty Four. Although North Korea is lacking in a technological sense compared to “The Party”, they have some very similar tactics such as the invasion of privacy, the creation of class systems and the use of propaganda to hold their oppressive power in place.

North Korea filters information through a network to only let acceptable information into their country. Factors that contribute to the restrictions of North Korea’s press might be that they are so close the South Korea, and don’t want their people seeing what is happening in South Korea, or they have fabricated some sort of alternative universe in North Korea to blind it’s citizens from the real world. But this isn’t the first time two places have been split by a wall, whether it be technological or

The Korean peninsula has been a volatile area since the end of World War II. Today it is the last example of a single nation divided between two states, represents the longest division of ideologies, and is the archetype of enduring Cold War symptoms. Although small in size, The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has been the biggest obstacle to regional stability in Asia, its militant and hostile policies posing a threat not only to western aligned nations, but also to its former and present benefactors, Russia and China. This dangerous country represents a very important target for the United States’ Intelligence Community, an extremely difficult one to exploit, but one that cannot be ignored as North Korea’s ambitions

Understanding how North Korea as a country defines itself in a changing world. Where do they derive their customs and practices, political standings and military power? Define North Korea’s history leading into the modern age and define its culture and characteristics and how they interact with the world today. Understanding a subject as broad as the term culture begins where the culture began with the birth of civilization and the people that influenced it. There are many factors that play a role in the shaping of a nation none so much as turmoil and conflict and the Korean peninsula saw its fair share for the better part of a millennia. A complete statistical breakdown of North Korea shows a struggling nation that strongly depends on

Back in Washington, President Clinton’s administration concluded that North Korea was reviving their nuclear missile program and demanded access to the suspected facilities being built. Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, granted access to multiple locations to U.S. officials for inspection of facilities in exchange for financial aid and food (Hathaway & Tama 724). North Korea’s negotiation for aid from the U.S. does not come as a surprise for the simple fact that citizens living under the supreme leadership of Kim Jong-un live in absolute poverty. Although the state-run government experiences hardship by trying to provide an adequate supply of food for citizens; the government spends a huge sum of money to maintain a large military force.

North Korea appears on the international stage as a country existing beyond the world we all know. It isolates its citizens from the rest of international community and does not obey any rules determined by international law, but requires respect and recognition. Moreover, North Korea is one of the countries that remains aggressive towards its neighbors and applies various terrorist techniques, i.e. illegal contraband, political terror and mass abductions of other countries’ citizens in its foreign policy. The reasons for which the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) behaves so unpredictably and irrationally are diversified. First of all, the DPRK as a country is managed very irrationally – regimes of Kim Il-sung and

The negotiations talking on the nuclear threaten and the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula has recently shaped the agenda of North Korean system of international relations, thus affecting the patterns of foreign policy of the DPRK. This issue has gained such a priority to lead to the establishment of the 6PT experiment, thus proving to stand at the core of the debate on the stability and safety debate in the Northeast Asia region.

There is only one cyber cafe in North Korea, and it is in Pyongyang, North Korea's capital city. North Korea “built its own custom-built operating system”(Lee), which is named Red Star. It is used on the computers in Pyongyang's cyber cafe. One crazy rule in North Korea is every time Kim Jong Un’s name shows up anywhere on any page on the internet, it has to be programmed on every pages code to be slightly bigger than the rest of the text on that page, “just enough to make it stand out” (Lee). The people of North Korea are “intentionally starved” out of any information except government propaganda (Lee). If you want to buy a computer in North Korea, it will probably cost about “three months of your salary, so people rarely do. They only have one high-speed internet cable while other countries like the United Kingdom, and the United States of America have “dozens” of them, so if one of the links fail we will be able to maintain it. North Korea won't be able to. It is easier for North Korea to control though with only one cable. (Sparks) Other countries like Russia try to use other countries ideas. Russia is trying to “copy” what China is doing with their internet. At first Russia’s internet was mostly free of censorship, but after a large anti-corruption protest in russia that was created through the use of the internet, Vladimir Putin feels that Russia’s internet should be more like China's. In