After missile and nuclear tests and uranium enrichment, the U.S. sanctions North Korean firms while Pyongyang reverses, making overtures. It’s not an accident, it’s a pattern of strategic disengagement.

Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) programs don’t pop-up overnight, especially in third-world backwaters like North Korea. Yet North Korea has announced via state-run media that it is capable of the “final stage of uranium enrichment.”
How shocking! There were no clues! There was no way to know this!
Well, not really. All [...]

Former President Kim Dae-jung (김대중) died today at age 83 (85 by Korean reckoning) of complications related to pneumonia. Kim was the Republic of Korea present from 1998 to 2003.
Although Kim had a long political career as an opposition leader – not an easy thing in Korea at the time – he [...]

Earlier this week former U.S. president Bill Clinton went to North Korea to obtain the release of two American journalists who foolishly strayed into that country five months earlier and became pawns in a larger – and largely futile – diplomatic game. Clinton’s visit was portrayed as unofficial and that of a private citizen, [...]

North Korea launched a Taepo Dong 2 (TD-2) missile - probably a space launch vehicle (SLV) - on 05 April 2009. This was a launch of many firsts for Pyongyang, including releasing data about the launch beforehand and some actual video of the event afterwards:

Like the 1998 Taepo Dong 1 (TD-1) launch that [...]

The Taepo Dong 2 (TD-2) (대포동 2호) missile launch(es) North Korea likely is preparing for, and recent voiding of all political-military deals with South Korea, are part of Pyongyang’s long-term strategy of regime survival. While these actions also have less important near-terms goals – expressing displeasure with ROK President Lee Myung-bak’s relatively hard-line approach [...]

North Korea’s state media, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), on 30 January 2009, released statement declaring the DPRK’s unilateral withdrawal from all political and military agreements with South Korea.
Specifically cited was a 1991 agreement that included a sea border in the Yellow Sea. This signals North Korea’s dissatisfaction with ROK President [...]

From the Korea Times (via ROK Drop): “The North Korean army should form part of peacekeeping forces to help reconstruct war-ravaged Afghanistan ― if Pyongyang normalizes relations with the United States, an opposition lawmaker said Thursday.” This from a South Korean Democratic Party (DP) member.

In 1999 the news on North Korea was both alarmist over North Korean antics and naively hopeful of peace suddenly breaking out. A decade later the news is still often alarmist - North Korea did test a nuclear device in 2006 after all - but less naive after decade of reneging on agreements and [...]

Via the Korea Society, North Korea made the U.S. an offer it could refuse, and apparently will:
North Korea offered to send its chief nuclear negotiator to next week’s inauguration of US President-elect Barack Obama, but Washington has responded coolly, South Korean news reports said Monday.
[. . .]
“The North, through its United Nations mission office [...]