North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs receive extensive attention from policymakers, scholars, and journalists. However, North Korea possesses a broad spectrum of asymmetric capabilities including cyber, information operations, electronic warfare, chemical weapons, biological weapons, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), Special Operations Forces (SOF), long-range artillery, in addition to its arsenal of nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles. While most of the U.S. national security discourse on North Korea focuses on the country’s nuclear weapons and long-range delivery systems, analysis of North Korean politics and state objectives generally is inadequate. This talk will address this gap by providing an overview of North Korean strategic culture and political goals, a short survey of the Korean People’s Army, and an assessment of Pyongyang’s asymmetric capabilities.

Daniel A. Pinkston is a lecturer in international relations at Troy University, based out of Seoul, South Korea. He was previously the Northeast Asia Deputy Project Director for the International Crisis Group, as well as the director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Pinkston received his Ph.D. in international affairs from the University of California, San Diego, and holds a Master’s degree in Korean studies from Yonsei University. He is the author of The North Korean Ballistic Missile Program (U.S. Army War College, 2008), as well as a number of scholarly articles on Korean security affairs. He has also served as a Korean linguist in the U.S. Air Force.

For more information, please call 206-543-4873, email uwcks@uw.edu or visit jsis.washington.edu….

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