Thank you for the opportunity to again testify before this Committee, and to provide my assessment of the major regional and strategic threats facing America today. As the members of this Committee are well aware, the end of the Cold War did not mean the end of threats to US global security interests. Indeed we are in many ways more challenged now than in the past given the diverse, diffuse, and unpredictable nature of today's threats. From the continuing conventional military challenges posed by North Korea and Iraq, to the criminal acts of international terrorist networks and the growing threat of Weapons of Mass Destruction in the hands of outlaw states, the international security environment is placing unprecedented demands on America's military. North Korea .
Some challenges are familiar ones.
The tension on the Korean Peninsula is a legacy of the Cold War that remains a major security issue today. Despite its collapsed economy and inability to feed its own population, the North Korean government continues to pursue a policy of confrontation with South Korea and its neighbors in the region. More than one million North Korean soldiers remain on active duty, the vast majority deployed within hours of the DMZ and South Korea's capital city, Seoul. Infiltration of the South by North Korean special forces continues to exacerbate tensions between the two governments, and the recent launch of a previously unknown long-range variant of the Taepo Dong One ballistic missile could herald a significant improvement in the North's capability to threaten the region and beyond. Finally, North Korea's repeated threats to walk away from the Agreed Framework that curtailed their nuclear production program remain unsettling to the international community.