ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the three periods: the Cold War; the post-Cold War period until October 2006, when UN Security Council Resolution 1718 was passed; and the ensuing era of international sanctions. Adding to North Korea's difficulties in the global arms market, the Soviet Union under the direction of Mikhail Gorbachev decided to end the age of handouts. The EU, Japan, South Korea, Australia and Canada are also comparatively active implementers of the sanctions regime against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. They, too, maintain their own list of designated entities and individuals involved in North Korean arms trade. Intelligence sharing is an activity that is possible only for those countries with sufficient resources to regularly and actively monitor North Korean arms trade and the entities engaged in it. North Korea's practice of exporting weapons and providing weapons-related services seems to have begun in earnest at this time, primarily as a contribution to the country's foreign-policy aims.
