What sites to use to watch North Korea

Tom Ricks asked me to provide ten blogs/resources that Korean experts use to keep up on north Korea. By providing the links and references I use I am not implying that I am a north Korean expert, as there are no real experts on north Korea. We can only at best be students of north Korea, trying to understand the most opaque, tyrannical, and horrific regime arguably in the existence of the nation-state. In no particular order, here are some of the websites and resources that I use to try to better understand the situation and keep up with current events.

1. The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA): This is the official north Korean news agency and provides stories and news reports about north Korea written by trusted members of the regime. Although many will discount the bombastic rhetoric and blatant falsehoods, careful reading and study provides insights into how the regime responds to and thinks about events that concern the Kim Family Regime. And the bombastic rhetoric can be entertaining.

2. The Daily North Korean (DailyNK): Published in South Korea by north Korean defectors. This site can be criticized by those who accuse north Korea defectors of having an agenda (they do, of course), but the site has many connections to people inside north Korea, and the experiences of defectors provide insights that cannot be found elsewhere, at least in reports provided on a daily basis. If you happen to be interested in unconventional warfare planning in north Korea, I recommend following this website. Of course, the information coming out of north Korea through this and every source should be treated with some skepticism until it can be vetted.

Read the full article at Foreign Policy.