Summary: Psychological assessment of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, leadership style implications of Kim’s personality profile, and North Korea threat assessment with respect to U.S. national security.

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Summary: A day after the United Nations Security Council agreed to a U.S.-backed resolution to censure and sanction North Korea for a rocket launch in December 2012 that breached U.N. rules, North Korea’s National Defense Commission announced it would carry out further rocket launches and a nuclear test that would target the United States, dramatically stepping up its threats against a country it called its “sworn enemy.”

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Summary: Citing North Korea’s development of intercontinental ballistic missiles and its efforts to expand its nuclear weapons capability, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said North Korea will pose a direct threat to the United States within five years if the communist dictatorship isn’t reined in. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 11, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that six NATO service members, including three Americans, were killed in Afghanistan, making it the deadliest day for the international force in more than two months.

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Summary: The White House is warning that al-Qaida is quietly hunting for an atomic bomb, adding urgency to a historic summit next week where President Barack Obama will try to persuade world leaders to step up efforts to keep nuclear weapons out of terrorist hands. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 9, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that PolitiFact debunked Rep. Michele Bachmann’s claim, in an April 7, 2009 op-ed in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, that President Barack Obama’s cap and trade proposal would cost every household in America more than $3,000 in energy costs a year. (Still, I don’t believe it’s good policy, but it’s wrong to go and lie about it.)

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Summary: Former U.S. President Bill Clinton made an unannounced visit to North Korea on a mission to win the release of jailed American reporters Laura Ling and Euna Lee, and to ease tensions over Pyongyang’s nuclear defiance. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on the 20th day of his 2008 campaign against U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, Sunday, August 3, 2008, Aubrey Immelman took a break from campaigning and posted, as a public service announcement to help draw attention to the sacrifice of National Guard citizen soldiers serving in Iraq and the families they leave behind, Part 1 of the Associated Press series, “The Longest Deployment” (the story of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division of the Minnesota National Guard and its tour of duty in Iraq).

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Summary: North Korea is interested in holding direct talks with the United States, according to North Korean ambassador to the United Nations Sin Son Ho. … Psychological Profile of Kim Jong-Il. … One-year retrospective: On the 12th day of his 2008 campaign against U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, Aubrey Immelman traveled to Minneapolis to tape an interview with Ken Avidor for The UpTake, focusing on his background, his reasons for running, and his core issues of national security, law enforcement/public safety, and border security/illegal immigration. In discussing national security, Immelman pointed to lost opportunities after 9/11, specifically “the ill-conceived invasion of Iraq, which turned a country that had been militarily contained and led by a dictator hostile to Iran and to Islamic fundamentalism … into a foreign policy nightmare that has consumed our domestic political agenda and squandered our finite resources for more than five years.” (Includes video of interview)

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Summary: North Korea’s motives in launching seven ballistic missiles on U.S. Independence Day, July 4, 2009. Includes link to North Korea threat assessment and psychological profile of Kim Jong-Il.

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Summary: Psychological assessment of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, leadership style implications of Kim’s personality profile, and North Korea threat assessment with respect to U.S. national security. … Update: Washington Post profile of Kim Jong-Un.

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Summary: South Korean and U.S. troops raised their alert to the highest level since 2006 after North Korea renounced its truce with the allied forces and threatened to strike any ships trying to intercept its vessels. The move was a sign of heightened tensions on the peninsula following the North’s underground nuclear test and its firing of a series of short-range missiles earlier in the week.

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Summary: Gen. George Casey, the Army chief of staff, says the Pentagon is prepared to leave fighting forces in Iraq for as long as a decade despite an agreement between the United States and Iraq that would bring all American troops home by 2012.

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