)exports: 0 metric tons (2020 est. How to Prepare for the Future After Seven Decades of the U.S.-South Korea Alliance, In Brief First Person Point of View 8. Where Does the Russia-North Korea Relationship Stand? )1.1% (2013 est. )arable land: 19.5% (2018 est. [9] Criminal penalties can be stiff; one of the basic functions of the system is to uphold the power of the regime. One main category is the Centrally Planned Economy or Least Open Economy that is implemented in North Korea. )wind: 0% of total installed capacity (2020 est. $40 billion (2015 est. [2], The leader must work through various agents and their institutions, which has the power to delay, modify, or even resist the leader's orders. In North Korea, the military, the internal security apparatus, and the cabinet all play a supporting role to enact the partys vision, says Ken Gause, an expert on North Korean leadership at the Virginia-based research organization CNA, adding that the military and the party are fused very closely.. For Foreign Affairs, Katrin Fraser Katz and Victor Cha discuss why it is time to plan for a succession crisis in North Korea. :) Advertisement Advertisement vegas191 vegas191 North Korea has a economy which is tightly controlled, saying that not even a single person can own a business. The Presidium is mandated to oversee legislative affairs in place of the Supreme Peoples Assembly. Dictatorship - a form of government in which a ruler or small clique wield absolute power (not restricted by a constitution or laws). But the alliance forged in blood should now evolve to be powered by chips, batteries, and clean technology. Some family members, however, have fallen out of favor, including Kims uncle Jang, who was married to Kim Kyong-hui, the daughter of Kim Il-sung. Brother Blood . Key Takeaways. , Point of View c. Third Person Point of View 6. The Constitution in use was adopted by the country in 1998 and subsequently amended in 2009, 2012, 2013, and 2016. Who was the second leader? )$1,800 (2014 est. Revisions were made in 1992, 1998, 2009, and 2016. It has been described as a socialist state and a totalitarian dictatorship. ), general assessment: following years of isolationism and economic under-achievement, North Korea languishes near the bottom of the worlds telecom maturity index alongside Afghanistan and Turkmenistan (who also happen to be struggling under repressive political regimes); the obstacles to building a functioning telecom network are so numerous that a fixed-line segment barely exists; mobile communication is estimated to have eased up slightly to reach 19% in 2021, yet the high cost of ownership coupled with strict censorship makes mobile communications the exclusive domain of senior government officials and diplomats; for those citizens living close to China, it has been possible to obtain Chinese handsets and SIM cards, and to connect to towers (illegally) located just across the border; while this offers access to the outside world and at much lower prices than the state-controlled offerings, the risks are high including steep fines and the possibility of jail time; North Korea has been slightly more effective in building an IT sector and a nascent digital economy on the back of a concerted effort to grow a sizeable, well-trained IT workforce; but even here, its capabilities have been directed more towards nefarious activities such as cyber crime and hacking into Western countries computer systems; North Koreas determination to put itself offside with the rest of the world in pursuit of its ideology can only lead to tighter controls on communications inside and outside of the country (2022)domestic: fixed-lines are approximately 5 per 100 and mobile-cellular 23 per 100 persons (2021)international: country code - 850; satellite earth stations - 2 (1 Intelsat - Indian Ocean, 1 Russian - Indian Ocean region); other international connections through Moscow and Beijing, no independent media; radios and TVs are pre-tuned to government stations; 4 government-owned TV stations; the Korean Workers' Party owns and operates the Korean Central Broadcasting Station, and the state-run Voice of Korea operates an external broadcast service; the government prohibits listening to and jams foreign broadcasts (2019), number of registered air carriers: 1 (2020)inventory of registered aircraft operated by air carriers: 4annual passenger traffic on registered air carriers: 103,560 (2018)annual freight traffic on registered air carriers: 250,000 (2018) mt-km, total: 39over 3,047 m: 32,438 to 3,047 m: 221,524 to 2,437 m: 8914 to 1,523 m: 2under 914 m: 4 (2021), total: 432,438 to 3,047 m: 31,524 to 2,437 m: 17914 to 1,523 m: 15under 914 m: 8 (2021), total: 7,435 km (2014)standard gauge: 7,435 km (2014) 1.435-m gauge (5,400 km electrified)note: figures are approximate; some narrow-gauge railway also exists, total: 25,554 km (2006)paved: 724 km (2006)unpaved: 24,830 km (2006), 2,250 km (2011) (most navigable only by small craft), total: 270by type: bulk carrier 9, container ship 5, general cargo 193, oil tanker 33, other 30 (2022), major seaport(s): Ch'ongjin, Haeju, Hungnam, Namp'o, Songnim, Sonbong (formerly Unggi), Wonsan, Korean People's Army (KPA): KPA Ground Forces, KPA Navy, KPA Air Force and Air Defense Forces, KPA Strategic Forces (missile forces), KPA Special Forces (special operations forces); Security Guard Command (aka Bodyguard Command); Military Security Command; Ministry of Social Security (formerly Ministry of Public Security): Border Guard General Bureau, civil security forces; Ministry of State Security: internal security, investigations (2023)note 1: North Korea employs a systematic and intentional overlap of powers and responsibilities among its multiple internal security organizations to prevent any potential subordinate consolidation of power and assure that each unit provided a check and balance on the other note 2: the Security Guard Command protects the Kim family, other senior leadership figures, and government facilitiesnote 3: the North also has a large paramilitary/militia force organized into the Worker Peasant Red Guard and Red Youth Guard; these organizations are present at all levels of government (province, county, ward) and are under the control of the Korean Workers' Party in peacetime, but revert to KPA control in crisis or war; they are often mobilized for domestic projects, such as road building and agricultural support, between 2010 and 2019, military expenditures accounted for an estimated 20-25% of North Korea's GDP annually; North Korea in the 2010s and 2020s has increasingly relied on illicit activities including cybercrime to generate revenue for its weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs to evade US and UN sanctions, information varies widely; estimated 1.15 million active troops (950,000 Army; 120,000 Air Force; 60,000 Navy; 10,000 Strategic Missile Forces); estimated 200,000 internal security forces (2022), the KPA is equipped with older weapon systems originally acquired from the former Soviet Union, Russia, and China, and some domestically produced equipment; North Korea produces a diverse array of military hardware, including small arms, munitions, light armored vehicles, tanks, naval vessels and submarines, and some advanced weapons systems, such as cruise and ballistic missiles; most are copies or upgrades of older foreign supplied equipment (2022)note: since 2006, the UN Security Council has passed nearly a dozen resolutions sanctioning North Korea for developing nuclear weapons and related activities, starting with Resolution 1718, which condemned the North's first nuclear test and placed sanctions on the supply of heavy weaponry (including tanks, armored combat vehicles, large calibre artillery, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, and missiles and missile launchers), missile technology and material, and select luxury goods; additional resolutions have expanded to include all arms, including small arms and light weapons; the US and other countries have also imposed unilateral sanctions, 17 years of age for compulsory military service for men and women; service obligation up to 10 years for men and 5-8 years for women (2023)note: the bulk of the KPA is made up of conscripts; as many as 20% of North Korean males between the ages of 16 and 54 are in the military at a given time and possibly up to 30 percent of males between the ages of 18 and 27, not counting the reserves or paramilitary units; women comprise about 20% of the military by some estimates, in addition to the invasion of South Korea and the subsequent Korean War (1950-53), North Korea from the 1960s to the 1980s launched a considerable number of limited military and subversive actions against South Korea using special forces and terrorist tactics; including aggressive skirmishes along the DMZ, overt attempts to assassinate South Korean leaders, kidnappings, the bombing of an airliner, and a failed effort in 1968 to foment an insurrection and conduct a guerrilla war in the South with more than 100 seaborne commandos; from the 1990s until 2010, the North lost two submarines and a semi-submersible boat attempting to insert infiltrators into the South (1996, 1998) and provoked several engagements in the Northwest Islands area along the disputed Northern Limit Line (NLL), including naval skirmishes between patrol boats in 1999 and 2002, the torpedoing and sinking of a South Korean Navy corvette in 2010, and the bombardment of a South Korean Marine Corps installation on Yeonpyeong Island, also in 2010; since 2010, further minor incidents continue to occur periodically along the DMZ, where both the KPA and the South Korean military maintain large numbers of troopsin 2018, North Korea and South Korea signed a tension reduction agreement known as the Comprehensive Military Agreement (CMA), which established land, sea, and air buffer zones along the DMZ and the NLL; implementation of the CMA required the removal of some land mines and guard posts; the efforts led to a reduction of tension in the DMZ, but North Korea has failed to uphold much of its side of the agreementthe KPA was founded in 1948; Kim Jong Un is the KPA supreme commander, while operational control of the armed forces resides in the General Staff Department (GSD), which reports directly to Kim; the GSD maintains overall control of all military forces and is charged with turning Kims directives into operational military orders; the Ministry of National Defense (MND) is responsible for administrative control of the military and external relations with foreign militariesNorth Koreas growing ballistic missile program includes close- (CRBM), short- (SRBM), medium- (MRBM), intermediate- (IRBM), and intercontinental- (ICBM) range ballistic missiles; the North received its first ballistic missiles, short-range FROGs (free rocket over ground), from the Soviet Union in the 1960s, but its modern ballistic missile program is generally thought to date back to the mid-1970s when it received a Soviet Scud-class missile, likely from Egypt; the North reverse-engineered the missile and developed an indigenously built version in 1984; it flight-tested its first Scud-based medium-range Nodong missile in 1990, and probably began development of the multi-stage Taepodong missiles around this time as well; the North revealed its first road-mobile ICBM in 2012 and conducted the first test of an ICBM-class system in 2017; it conducted additional ICBM tests in 2022 (2023), North Korea-China: risking arrest, imprisonment, and deportation, tens of thousands of North Koreans cross into China to escape famine, economic privation, and political oppression; North Korea and China dispute the sovereignty of certain islands in Yalu and Tumen Rivers, North Korea-Japan: North Korea supports South Korea in rejecting Japan's claim to Liancourt Rocks (Tok-do/Take-shima), North Korea-South Korea: Military Demarcation Line within the 4-km-wide Demilitarized Zone has separated North from South Korea since 1953; periodic incidents in the Yellow Sea with South Korea which claims the Northern Limiting Line as a maritime boundary, tier rating: Tier 3 the government of North Korea does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so; the government did not demonstrate any efforts to address human trafficking; during this reporting period there was a government policy or pattern of human trafficking in prison camps, in labor training centers, in massed mobilizations of adults and children, and through forced labor by North Korean overseas workers; proceeds from state-sponsored forced labor funded government functions and illicit activities (2022)trafficking profile: human traffickersincluding government officialsexploit North Koreans at home and abroad; women and children are exploited in sex trafficking within North Korea; forced labor is part of an established system of political repression and a pillar of the economic system; children in prison camps are subject to forced labor for up to 12 hours per day; officials forcibly mobilize adults and school children to work in factories, agriculture, logging, mining, infrastructure work, information technology, and construction sectors; North Koreans sent to work abroad, including through bilateral agreements with foreign businesses or governments, face forced labor conditions; NGOs report overseas workers are managed as a matter of state policy; the government often appropriates and deposits worker salaries into government-controlled accounts; in 2017, the UN Security Council prohibited members from issuing or renewing work authorizations for North Koreans and, with limited exceptions, required repatriation; nonetheless, an estimated 20,000-100,000 North Koreans are working in China, primarily in restaurants and factories; North Korean women and girls lured by promises of jobs in China are forced into prostitution, marriage, or exploitative labor arrangements; many North Koreans continue to work or enter Russia, and some workers are reportedly working in African, Middle Eastern, an Southeast Asian countries (2022), at present there is insufficient information to determine the current level of involvement of government officials in the production or trafficking of illicit drugs, but for years, from the 1970s into the 2000s, citizens of North Korea , many of them diplomatic employees of the government, were apprehended abroad while trafficking in narcotics; police investigations in Taiwan, Japan and Australia during that period have linked North Korea to large illicit shipments of heroin and methamphetamine, total population growth rate v. urban population growth rate, 2000-2030, Children under the age of 5 years underweight, School life expectancy (primary to tertiary education), International law organization participation, Household income or consumption by percentage share, Civil aircraft registration country code prefix, Military and security service personnel strengths, Military equipment inventories and acquisitions, Refugees and internally displaced persons, Center for the Study of Intelligence (CSI).