WORLD

World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers 2005
US State Department

The US State Department released its World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers 2005 report last week with a ton of stats for you to wade through. This and future WMEAT reports will only be available online. Welcome to the future.

NORTH KOREA

Review Roundtable: “No Exit: North Korea, Nuclear Weapons and International Security”
Toby Dalton, Jeffrey Lewis, Sue Terry, Sung-Yoon Lee and Jonathan D. Pollack [NBR]

A series of reviews of Jonathan D. Pollack’s new IISS Adelphi Paper. For those of us outside academia, the actual monograph itself will be far too expensive pick up ourselves, so this review is possibly the next best thing.

Some other good articles on the North Korea leadership transition were released last week: Peter Drysdale’s North Korean Realities at East Asia Forum and CFR’s interview with Scott A. Snyder.

SOUTH KOREA

South Korea’s Policy Toward China After President Lee’s Visit
Jaeho Hwang [CSIS]

Hwang gives brief overview of the recent Sino-Korean relationship and uses it to suggest that the Lee Myung-bak’s talk of a strategic cooperative relationship with China is premature.

JAPAN

Annual Japanese polls on views toward the U.S. out of sync
William Brooks [APP]

It’s somewhat common to pour over the details of public opinion polls on the US-Japan relationship for signs of strength or cracks, but William Brooks does just this with the Cabinet opinion poll and the recent Yomiuri-Gallup poll. What he finds is a disjuncture between the two. It makes for an interesting read as he tries to shine light on the differences.

BONUS VIDEO

Start your week off with a Hu Jintao serenade: [via FP Passport]