Hoover Institution fellow Thomas Henriksen discusses the North Korean regime’s aggressive activities, which continue to cause alarm in the international community—but do they truly threaten global security?

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s very public feud in the past week with the bereaved parents of an American soldier killed in Iraq has sparked heavy political backlash. But it has also had an unexpected consequence: bringing the military experience into public focus in a way that 14 years of U.S. military combat has not done.

In November 2015, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) announced that the military’s remaining sanctioned participation in the PRC economy, known as “paid services,” would be phased out over the course of three years.