Word: pyongyang
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...National Security Agency - eavesdrops on communications. Defectors from the North have been thoroughly scrubbed and spies have been recruited. During the presidency of George W. Bush, diplomats from the U.S. and four other countries talked, on and off, for years with their counterparts from Pyongyang...
...such dire circumstances, the North's leaders not only consider nuclear weapons and long-range missiles a necessary deterrent, they surely also regard them as their only bargaining chips. And the bargaining can only be with Washington, which Pyongyang has recognized for some time as its best hope for surviving. From the North's point of view, any bargain would have to take the form of a new package deal that would reaffirm to Kim Jong Il that the U.S. is not hostile to the regime, accepts its legitimacy and is willing to provide long-term development assistance. Only...
...Some critics will say that a dictatorial regime such as North Korea, with all its human-rights abuses, does not deserve added security. But as former U.S. defense secretary William Perry said in 1999, on returning from Pyongyang: "We have to deal with the North Korean government not as we wish they would be, but as in fact they are." Although the U.S. does not consider itself a threat to the North, Perry continued, Pyongyang believes the opposite. The North's need of a deterrent, Perry said, has "a very clear logic." The prescription seems plain: keep engaging the North...
North Korea's rocket launch of April 5, the U.N. Security Council vote to condemn the launch and strengthen sanctions, and the North's decision of April 14 to pull out of the six-party talks have thrown a monkey wrench into prospects for a negotiated resolution of Pyongyang's nuclear-weapon and missile programs. On the surface it appears that North Korea is again embarked on a threatening course; it has vowed to continue work on its contested weapons programs. But on closer examination, the North's weapons tests always occur at times of insecurity. Its tough posturing belies...
...conclusions drawn from the exercise, he said, were more "informational and cultural." The response to a North Korean attack, he says, would have to require diplomatic, humanitarian and other solutions, including the involvment of many other allies. That does not bode well for the world beyond the games, where Pyongyang remains a frightening question mark...