Former chief weapons inspector David Kay's criticism of U.S. intelligence on Iraq underscores the limits of our ability to collect and interpret such data. It should also caution neocons in Washington not to be smug about the depth of U.S. understanding of North Korea.
In early 1998, when I began my North Korea assignment at the State Department, I thought I knew all one needed to know about the country. As a Korean American whose mother was born in what is now North Korea and whose father was born in South Korea, I was a super-hawk on North Korea: The country was totalitarian, evil and weak; the U.S. was strong and, with enough pressure, would put this tiny nation in its place. However, I soon realized I had been viewing North Korea and its people as caricatures and that things were not so black and white.
The key to any confrontation is to know your adversary. As the U.S. contemplates its next steps toward Pyongyang, Bush administration officials should be mindful of the myths that they seem to harbor:
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