Preparing for Sudden Change in North Korea

North Korea poses difficult challenges for the United States. The full extent of the North Korean nuclear arsenal is unknown; tens of thousands of U.S. forces are deployed on the Korean peninsula in support of U.S. commitments to South Korea; and the peninsula sits in a strategically vital region, where the United States, China, Russia, Japan, and South Korea all have important interests at stake. And the Kim Jong-Il government is perhaps the worlds most difficult to read or even see.