AEI's Henry Wendt Scholar Nicholas Eberstadt wins the prestigious Bradley Prize

Ever since its founding in 1948, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has maintained an aggressive and bellicose international security posture. Today, fully two decades after the end of the Cold War, North Korea's external defense and security policies look arguably more extreme and anomalous than ever.

This article examines global demographic trends to 2030, with a particular focus on projections for the world's major economies. All else held constant, ageing populations imply slower rates of economic development for Western Societies. However, a number of policy options are available to counteract the impact of demographic change.

Everybody who pays attention to these sorts of things knows Muslim societies are almost uniquely immune to the forces that have been driving down fertility rates on every continent for decades. But everybody, it seems, fell asleep before the final act.

Despite a decade and a half of charitable assistance, North Korea remains on the verge of another eruption of mass hunger. So is effective international humanitarian aid to the DPRK conceivable?

In many of today's important "emerging markets," demographic pressures may constrain economic growth more significantly than people may think.

Kim Jong Il was nothing less than an economic catastrophe for North Korea. His political ascent, in fact, tracks almost precisely with that ill-fated nation's shift to economic stagnation and then its frightening free-fall into abject mass misery.

The prevailing economic development narrative--that centrally planned economies are doomed to fail against market-oriented alternatives--may require re-examination in light of the experience of the two Koreas during the Cold War.