Seven years into the George W. Bush presidency, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea can point to a number of important domestic and international successes, despite the highly unfavorable environment that has confronted its leadership.

Throughout this period, Pyongyang has been able to suppress all internal dissent and remain the world’s most repressive police state. It has also managed, without reprisal, to emerge as a declared nuclear weapons state and to test an atomic weapon. And since the start of the new century, North Korea has succeeded in extracting significantly larger economic subsidies from abroad for financing its operations of state. These “achievements” all augur ill for international security--but they may indeed make the world safer from the standpoint of Kim Jong Il and his ruling circle.

What are the North Korean government’s international objectives and how has it fared in its contentious dealings with what it calls the “hostile” Bush administration? Will current international engagement policies--including the ongoing six-party talks--succeed in reducing the threats Pyongyang poses to the international community? If not, what alternative approaches should be considered by the next U.S. administration?

A panel of North Korea watchers and international security specialists will discuss North Korea’s strategy for state survival, the Bush administration’s performance in dealing with this aggressively revisionist state, and the outlook for Kim Jong Il’s gulag “paradise” in the post-Bush era.