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Our Dossier

This dossier documents the United States relationship with North Korea.

Please use the tabs to access the three sections of this dossier:

Tab 1 lists US priorities with regard to North Korea, major USG statements, latest USG statements, USG fact sheets, and USG reports. 

Tab 2 lists unofficial reports, journal articles, and other documents.

Tab 3 provides a set of links to major web sites.

If you cannot find what you are looking for, please contact us through email.

    
 

Non U.S. Govt. Resources

What They’ll find in North Korea North Korea has pledged to disable its nuclear facilities by the end of the year, and the United States is sending a team of technical experts to Yongbyon to begin the process of putting Pyongyang’s bomb machine to sleep.
 

North Korea flag CNS Special Report on North Korean Ballistic Missile Capabilities. This report discusses North Korea's missile capabilities.

IISS: North Korea's Weapons Programmes: A Net Assesment.North Korea's Weapons Programmes: A Net Assesment. This IISS report gives on overview of North-Korea's weapons programs.

Non-US Government Report icon The North Korean Refugee Crisis: Human Rights and International Response. This report from the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, discusses North Korea's refugee problem.

Kim Jong Il and North Korea: the Leader and the System. Kim Jong Il and North Korea: the Leader and the System. The author (Strategic Studies Institute) explores North Korea's political dynamics and seeks to shed light on Pyongyang's political system and its leader.

Non-US Government Report icon The Six Party Talks and Beyond: Cooperative Threat Reduction and North Korea. The authors outline in this CSIS report the reasons why multilateral, cooperative threat reduction should play an important role in future efforts to eliminate the threat posed by North Korean weapons programs.

RAND: North Korean Paradoxes: Circumstances, Costs, and Consequences of Korean Unification.North Korean Paradoxes: Circumstances, Costs, and Consequences of Korean Unification. This RAND report analyzes some of the economic, political, and security issues associated with possible Korean unification.

 

  
 

The United States Policy towards North Korea: A Dossier

A North Korean soldier looks at southern side through binoculars as a U.S. soldier stands at the truce village of Panmunjom in the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas since the Korean War, north of Seoul, Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2004. The U.N. Military Armistice Commission, the U.N. watchdog overseeing a cease-fire on the divided Korean Peninsula, relocated Tuesday from Seoul to the border between the two Koreas to better monitor increasing traffic between the former battlefield foes. (AP Photo/ Lee Jin-man)
A North Korean soldier looks at southern side through binoculars as a U.S. soldier stands at the truce village of Panmunjom in the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas since the Korean War, north of Seoul, Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2004.  (AP Photo/ Lee Jin-man)

Journal Articles

Disclaimer: The materials in this section are from sources outside the U.S. Government and should not be construed as an endorsement of the views or privacy policies contained therein or as official U.S. policy.

Journal Article IconLaney, James; Shaplen, Jason.  DISARMING NORTH KOREA. Foreignaffairs.org, February 2007. n.p. Full text available from publisher website

In this article Laney and Shaplen update their March/April 2003 essay "How to Deal With North Korea". Jason T. Shaplen was Policy Adviser at the Korean Peninsula Energy Organization (KEDO) from 1995 to 1999. James Laney was U.S. Ambassador to South Korea from 1993 to 1997.

Journal Article IconGreen, Michael J. NUCLEAR SHOCKWAVES: MAKING THE BEST OF BAD OPTIONS. Arms Control Today, November 2006. pp. 9-13. Full text available via ProQuest

Only days after this agreement was signed, North Korea said it would not return to the talks until the United States dropped what Pyongyang called its 'hostile policy,' specifically the U.S. clarification in coordination with the other parties that North Korea would not be allowed to discuss the provision of light-water reactors until nuclear weapons and programs had been completely dismantled. North Korea also took exception to sanctions the United States imposed that month on a bank in Macau that had been laundering illicit North Korean funds. This article discusses the different options. Michael J. Green is a senior adviser and the Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Journal Article IconKaplan, Robert D. WHEN NORTH KOREA FALLS. Atlantic Monthly, October 2006, pp. 64-75. Full text available from publisher website

"The article discusses the threat of regime collapse in North Korea, which the author contends is likely and imminent. The beneficiary of the event, according to the author, will be China. The fall of North Korea will alter the balance of power in Asia dramatically. The U.S. and other world powers have high economic and political stakes throughout the region." Robert D. Kaplan is a national correspondent at The Atlantic.

Journal Article IconHolmes, James R. LESSONS OF THE KOREAN WAR FOR THE "SIX-PARTY TALKS". World Affairs, Summer 2006. pp. 3-24. Full text available via ProQuest

After their September 2005 meetings in Beijing, to be sure, the protagonists in the "six-party talks" on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program-North Korea, South Korea, China, the United States, Japan, and Russia-issued a "historic joint statement" that seemed to break the longstanding deadlock.1 In the joint statement, the Bush administration promised not to attack North Korea, while Kim Jong-II's government promised to cease its bomb-building efforts. James R. Holmes is a senior research associate at the University of Georgia Center for International Trade and Security, Athens, GA.
 

Journal Article IconPark, John S. INSIDE MULTILATERALISM: THE SIX-PARTY TALKS. The Washington Quarterly, Autumn 2005, pp. 75-91. Full text available from publisher website

Despite extensive diplomatic efforts to facilitate the six-party talks, domestic policy constraints, differing priorities, and conflicting historical analogies among each of the countries have brought vastly differing perspectives to the multilateral negotiating table. John S. Park is a fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs (BCSIA) at Harvard University.

 

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