NKIDP e-Dossier no. 12, "The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Origins of North Korea’s Policy of Self-Reliance in National Defense," is introduced by James F. Person and features 6 translated documents which demonstrate how the Cuban Missile Crisis transformed North Korea’s relations with Moscow and Beijing and nudged the country down a path of unsustainable military buildup that, in part, resulted in a nuclear weapons program and was responsible for the country’s economic difficulties in later decades.

Drawing on past work supported by the Cold War International History Program, the A. Ross Johnson and R. Eugene Parta apply lessons from successful U.S. international broadcasting during the Cold War to today’s transformed geopolitical, media, and technological world. They suggest a restatement of mission and corresponding organizational changes to ensure that international broadcasting remains an effective instrument of U.S. soft power – one supporting freedom and democracy abroad in the national interest.