People's Army : North Korean Military Power, Nuclear Strategy, Missiles, and Korean Peninsula Deterrence

People's Army: The Military Power of North Korea offers a rigorous, multidimensional examination of the Korean People's Army as an instrument of regime survival, coercive diplomacy, and regional strategic calculation. Combining strategic assessment, institutional analysis, historical synthesis, and policy-oriented argument, the volume situates conventional forces, missile and nuclear ambitions, special operations, and civil-military control within the wider security architecture of Northeast Asia. Its strongest contributions lie in demonstrating that North Korean military power cannot be reduced to troop numbers or matériel: it is inseparable from ideology, political discipline, economic constraint, and deterrence. The contributors—including analysts associated with the Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. congressional and policy communities—bring complementary expertise in Asian security, military affairs, intelligence assessment, and statecraft. Their perspectives emerge from the post-Cold War strategic studies tradition, attentive to proliferation, alliance management, asymmetric warfare, and the enduring consequences of the Korean War. Read alongside the political context represented by U.S. policymaking voices, these analyses illuminate the contested assumptions that shape international responses to Pyongyang. This volume is recommended for students, scholars, military professionals, and informed readers seeking a grounded account of North Korea's armed forces. Its varied approaches provide both historical depth and policy relevance, inviting readers to compare competing assessments of capability, intention, and risk within a single, intellectually cohesive collection.