Author: Bruce E. Bechtol Jr. File Type: pdf 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 Koreas 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 Koreas 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. **Review This book answers urgent calls for clear thinking and balanced analysis on the topic of North Koreas expansive activities in two vital regions of the globe.Written in a compelling style and using the most up-to-date sources, Bechtol has made a significant contribution to understandings of how this rogue state has become a global menace.This book belongs on the bookshelves of anyone interested in learning more about the shadowy actions of this increasinglydangerous regime.Paul Kan, US Army War College Bruce Bechtol reveals the lesser known dimensions of the North Korean threat. This book illuminates the complexities of the global challenge posed by the most infamous rogue state of the early twenty-first century.Andrew Scobell, author of North Koreas Military Threat Pyongyangs Conventional Forces, Weapons of Mass Destruction, And Ballistic Missiles Bruce Bechtols impressively thorough research, analysis and foresight are no surprise to experts and students of the Asia Pacific alike. North Korean Military Proliferation in the Middle East and Africa sheds light on an entirely new dimension of the security threats posed by North Korea. The criminality of the Kim regime goes beyond its threatening the Asia Pacific region and the world with nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles or brutalizing its own people. Through scrupulous investigation and sharp analysis, Bechtol proves that the Kim regime illicitly proliferates tools of death ranging from small arms to ballistic missiles and WMDs to rogue actors and regimes in the Middle East and Africa. Through its criminal proliferation, North Korea jeopardizes security in one of the worlds most volatile regions and destroys the lives of countless millions.Greg Scarlatoiu, Executive Director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea Dr. Bechtol has written a deeply researched treatise on the roots, extent, and threats posed by the DPRKs ongoing sales of conventional weapons, ballistic missile and WMD systems and technology active collaboration in ballistic missile and possibly nuclear weapons research and development and active support of the production and use of chemical weapons in this greatly troubled part of the world. It is essential reading for those concerned with events in the Middle East, Africa, or the DPRK itself.William Newcomb, former member of the United Nations Security Council Panel of Experts on DPRK Sanctions About the Author Bruce E. Bechtol Jr. is professor of political science at Angelo State University and a retired Marine. He is the author or editor of six previous books, including The Last Days of Kim Jong-il The North Korean Threat in a Changing Era and Confronting Security Challenges on the Korean Peninsula.

Author: Sandy Gall File Type: mobi Since the days of Alexander the Great, Afghanistans strategically significant lands have been fought over by foreign invaders. Today, as yet another generation risks life and limb in this inhospitable territory, an ever-rising death toll puts back under the spotlight almost daily the way the modern war in Afghanistan is being run, and demands answers. Drawing on over a hundred interviews with Afghan politicians, businessmen and ordinary people, British, American and European diplomats and soldiers, Sandy Gall shines fresh light on the failure to capture Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora and, equally disastrous, American and British gullibility in the face of Pakistans continued tolerance of the Taliban. He asks why the reconstruction of Afghanistan has withered on the vine and how we have allowed a Presidential style of government to concentrate power in one mans hands, under whom, amid cronyism and corruption, the Taliban insurgency only grows ever stronger. But is it too late? Examining the emotive issue of equipment shortages, exposing the extent to which the drug trade has corrupted the country, and assessing the accusation of endemic, systemic failure within the MOD, Sandy Gall addresses the challenges, political, religious, and military, that face those now fighting on the most dangerous frontier in the world.--Publishers website.