Special Reports

Hiromichi Umebayashi, Founder and President of Peace Depot, a non-profit organization for peace research and education in Japan, ‘reports that a study using FOIA “has established for the first time the actual patrol patterns of the U.S. Navy Aegis destroyers in the Sea of Japan engaged in missile defense duties.” Umebayashi concludes that “the plan is to integrate Aegis ships long-range surveillance and tracking data in the Sea of Japan, the interceptor missile launch control system and the battle management system. Accordingly, the Japan Sea patrols are a crucial component in exercises to develop the core of the whole integrated system US National Missile Defense system.”

Peter Hayes, Executive Director of the Nautilus Institute, writes, “while the United States is chasing the DPRK regime’s loose change in the short term to apply pressure, the regime is investing in minerals development, niche markets for exporting cheap labor or embodied labor, a boot-strapping service sector, and real estate development on the DMZ that combined, represent a long-term and slowly growing economic foundation for a nuclear-armed DPRK.”

Sheila A. Smith, research fellow in Politics, Governance, and Security in the East-West Center Research Program and project director of Shifting Terrain, writes, “to be successful new initiatives for managing the presence of American forces in each of these societies will need to conform to domestic law and meet public expectations for government accountability. National governments in Asia’s democracies must balance their national security goals with these new norms of democratic practice.”

The Institute for Far Eastern Studies writes, “following DPRK leader Kim Jong Il’s instruction in March 2003, which allowed for the transformation of farmers’ markets into consolidated markets, the Unification Market opened as the largest market in Pyongyang on September 1st of the same year. With 1,500 booths spanning over 6000 sq. meters, the market is divided into three zones — agriculture produce and fish products, food and clothing, and metal utensils and appliances — with each zone housing a management office, money changer, and a food court, which offer a variety of conveniences to the customer.”

The Institute for Far Eastern Studies describes the current developments in constructing the Sinuiju Special Administrative Region in the DPRK near the PRC border. “Under the direction of central authorities, foreign currency management groups are rapidly being moved into Sinuiju, while ordinary residents are being relocated to other regions only to be replaced by residents of Pyongyang and other areas who are in the process of moving in.”

CNS Special Report: on North Korean Ballistic Missile Capabilities by the Center for Nonproliferation Studies

The Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterrey Institute for International Studies (MIIS) composed this report that answers key questions about North Korea’s ballistic missiles and presents estimates of their missile capabilities.

Mark Manyin, Specialist in Asian Affairs at the Congressional Research Service, prepared this report on US aid to the DPRK. The report details food aid, KEDO assistance, and medical aid over the last 10 years. The report also summarizes changes in World Food Program (WFP) operations, the termination of the KEDO project, and the impact of the North Korean Human Rights Act on US assistance to the DPRK.

The International Crisis Group, an independent, non-profit, multinational organization, that works through field-based analysis and high-level advocacy to prevent and resolve deadly conflict, write “Although it cannot deliver a rapid end to Pyongyang’s weapons program, China must still be an integral component of any strategy with a chance of reducing the threat of a nuclear North Korea?Over the long-term, Chinese economic interaction with the North may be the best hope for sparking deeper systemic reform and liberalisation there.”

The International Crisis Group, an independent, non-profit, multinational organization, that works through field-based analysis and high-level advocacy to prevent and resolve deadly conflict, write “resolving territorial and historical disputes that have been building for decades will not be easy or quick but failure at least to ameliorate them risks undermining the peace and prosperity of the region.”