North Korea has posed a threat to stability in Northeast Asia for decades. Since Kim Jong-un assumed power, this threat has both increased and broadened. Since 2011, the small, isolated nation has detonated nuclear weapons multiple times, tested a wide variety of ballistic missiles, expanded naval and ground systems that threaten South Korea, and routinely employs hostile rhetoric. Another threat it poses has been less recognized: North Korea presents a potentially greater risk to American interests by exporting its weapons systems to other volatile regions worldwide. In North Korean Military Proliferation in the Middle East and Africa, Bruce E. Bechtol Jr. analyzes relevant North Korean military capabilities, what arms the nation provides, and to whom, how it skirts its sanctions, and how North Korea's activities can best be contained. He traces illicit networks that lead to state and nonstate actors in the Middle East, including Syria, Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas, and throughout Africa, including at least a dozen nations. The potential proliferation of nuclear and chemical weapons technology and the vehicles that carry it, including ballistic missiles and artillery, represent a broader threat than the leadership in Pyongyang. Including training and infrastructure support, North Korea's profits may range into the billions of dollars, all concealed in illicit networks and front companies so complex that the nation struggles to track and control them. Bechtol not only presents an accurate picture of the current North Korean threat -- he also outlines methodologies that Washington and the international community must embrace in order to contain it.

This work analyses North Korean military capabilities, what arms the nation provides, and to whom, how it skirts its sanctions, and how North Korea's activities can best be contained. Bruce E. Bechtol Jr. traces illicit networks that lead to state and nonstate actors in the Middle East, including Syria, Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas, and throughout Africa.

North Korea has posed a threat to stability in Northeast Asia for decades. Since Kim Jong-un assumed power, this threat has both increased and broadened. Since 2011, the small, isolated nation has detonated nuclear weapons multiple times, tested a wide variety of ballistic missiles, expanded naval and ground systems that threaten South Korea, and routinely employs hostile rhetoric. Another threat it poses has been less recognized: North Korea presents a potentially greater risk to American interests by exporting its weapons systems to other volatile regions worldwide. In North Korean Military Proliferation in the Middle East and Africa, Bruce E. Bechtol Jr. analyzes relevant North Korean military capabilities, what arms the nation provides, and to whom, how it skirts its sanctions, and how North Korea's activities can best be contained. He traces illicit networks that lead to state and nonstate actors in the Middle East, including Syria, Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas, and throughout Africa, including at least a dozen nations. The potential proliferation of nuclear and chemical weapons technology and the vehicles that carry it, including ballistic missiles and artillery, represent a broader threat than the leadership in Pyongyang. Including training and infrastructure support, North Korea's profits may range into the billions of dollars, all concealed in illicit networks and front companies so complex that the nation struggles to track and control them. Bechtol not only presents an accurate picture of the current North Korean threat—he also outlines methodologies that Washington and the international community must embrace in order to contain it.

A UN arms embargo has been in place against North Korea for nearly a decade, as part of a broader sanctions regime designed to deny it the goods and funds needed to fuel its nuclear weapons and ballistic-missile programmes. Yet despite these sanctions, a host of state and non-state actors continue to buy arms, material and services from Pyongyang – and inject funds into the same coffers that drive North Korea’s nuclear and missile development. While some of North Korea’s military customers in the sanctions era since 2006 are well known – such as Iran, Syria and Burma – Pyongyang’s wider client base receives little international attention. North Korea has continued to enjoy access to other defence markets across Africa and the Middle East. The drivers of these clients’ decisions to buy weapons and related goods from North Korea are rarely discussed. This gap in analysis is essential to fill. If tailored and effective approaches are to be developed to convince North Korea’s customers to buy elsewhere, they must be based on a sound understanding of the considerations that motivated the client to turn to Pyongyang in the first place. Target Markets comprehensively analyses the available information on these procurement decisions. It concludes, contrary to conventional wisdom, that the reasons that customers buy weapons and related goods and services from North Korea vary, often greatly. This study also concludes that one of the greatest achievements of the UN sanctions regime to date has been to deny North Korea access to modern conventional weapons technology that it can learn to manufacture at home and sell on to its clients around the world. Without more contemporary wares to tempt foreign buyers, North Korea will likely continue to see its client list for weapons and related goods and services shrinking.

In Rogue Allies: The Strategic Partnership between Iran and North Korea, Bruce E. Bechtol Jr. and Anthony N. Celso examine the influence of these two rogue states whose rebellion against the United States and US-backed countries has serious consequences for international relations. Iran and North Korea have profited from illegal activities, such as the arming of terrorist organizations, in attempts to disrupt peace efforts in the Middle East and East Asia and to destabilize the rules-based order of the world. Bechtol and Celso uncover the origins of this decades-long alliance, consider elements that these two nation-states have in common, and explain how their relationship undermines neighboring regions. The authors draw from revealing interviews with Iranian and North Korean defectors as well as firsthand accounts from other sources, providing crucial additions to this body of research. While some scholars have compared and contrasted Iran and North Korea, few have delved into how this partnership works to achieve its far-reaching impact. By assessing key aspects of the Iran–North Korea nexus—including military, ideological, economic, and environmental forces—Rogue Allies investigates the link between two volatile states and the ensuing implications for global security.

This report details the entities involved in North Korea's sanctions evasion activities and sanctions evasion techniques in the areas of hard-currency generation, restricted and dual-use technology acquisition, covert transport, and covert finance.

North Korea's primary strategic goal is perpetual Kim family rule via the simultaneous development of its economy and nuclear weapons program - a two-pronged policy known as byungjin. Pyongyang portrays nuclear weapons as its most effective way to deter the threat from the United States. However, regime propaganda began emphasizing "final victory" over the United States and Republic of Korea (ROK) in 2017, suggesting Kim Jong Un has larger ambitions, including use of nuclear weapons to deter interference if it attempts to reunify the Korean Peninsula. Internally, the regime seeks to maintain control over a populace that is decreasingly reliant on it, and Kim Jong Un has embraced coercive measures such as purges and public executions to quell dissent. Regionally, the North has been willing to accept a decline in relations, including with its main benefactor China, to further its nuclear program. North Korea conducted more than 20 missile launches in 2016 alone with a similar number in 2017. 2017 also saw North Korea's first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) flight tests in July and intermediate-range missile (IRBM) tests over Japan in August and September. In addition to ICBMs, North Korea is developing and testing longer-range solid-propellant missile systems, submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM), and short-range ballistic missiles (SRBM) as countermeasures against U.S. and allied missile defenses. North Korea conducted its sixth and largest nuclear test in September 2017 after two in 2016, and continues to invest in its nuclear infrastructure. North Korea's conventional force continues to emphasize large defensive and asymmetric attack capabilities to counter the technologically superior forces of the U.S. and ROK Alliance. The (North) Korean People's Army's (KPA) large artillery force is deployed along the demilitarized zone (DMZ), posing a constant threat to the Greater Seoul Metropolitan Area (GSMA). In 2016, the North publicized tests of a new close-range ballistic missile (CRBM), the KN-SS-X-9, which, if deployed, could extend North Korea's artillery reach to U.S. Garrison Humphreys (current location of U.S. 8th Army HQ and future location of U.S. Forces Korea and the United Nations Command) and beyond. North Korea uses offensive cyber operations as a cost-effective and deniable asymmetric tool to carry out regime goals on a global scale. North Korea continues to market, sell, and deliver weapons-related goods and services to a small set of countries in Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, providing a vital source of foreign currency. Global concern about North Korea's proliferation activities has led some countries to halt new purchases from North Korea and has led other nations to take action to prevent arms-related deliveries.