Defiant Failed State: The North Korean Threat to International Security

Since the 1990s, the American government has underprioritized the North Korean threat to global security, according to Bruce Bechtol, an associate professor of political science at Angelo State University. Because North Korea appears economically weak and politically unstable, it is often categorized as a state on the brink of collapse---a failed state. But Bechtol makes a convincing case that North Korea is more complex and menacing than how it has often been characterized.

Defiant Failed State shows how the North Korean government has adapted to the post-Cold War environment and poses a multifaceted danger to the national security of the United States and its allies. Bechtol analyzes North Korea's military capabilities, nuclear program, proliferation activities, and leadership succession process to mine the answers to important questions such as: Is North Korea capable of surviving indefinitely? Why and how does it present such risk to Asia and the United States and its allies?

This book sheds new light on the nature of the North Korean threat and the key foreign policy issues that remain unresolved between the United States and South Korea. It is essential reading for scholars, policymakers, military strategists, functional and regional specialists, and anyone who is interested in East Asian affairs.

Bruce E. Bechtol, Jr., is an associate professor of political science at Angelo State University and served as a visiting adjunct professor at the Korea University Graduate School of International Studies in Seoul. A former intelligence officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency and a retired Marine, he has lived and worked in South Korea. He is the author of Red Rogue: The Persistent Challenge of North Korea, as well as numerous articles in peerreviewed journals relating to Korean security issues. He lives in San Angelo, Texas.