North Korea is often portrayed as entirely isolated from the rest of the world, but the reality is that it has diplomatic links with almost 50 countries. Which are they, and just how close are their ties?
North Korea's pariah status appears to increase by the day.
Yet beneath its apparent isolation lies a strange anomaly, its surprisingly expansive diplomatic network.
Since North Korea's creation in 1948, it has established formal diplomatic relations with more than 160 countries and it maintains 55 embassies and consulates in 48 nations.
China and Russia, as its then communist neighbours, were among the earliest to establish diplomatic relations after the creation of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea - as it is officially known.
Among those to take action are Spain, Kuwait, Peru, Mexico, Italy and Myanmar, also known as Burma, which have all expelled ambassadors or diplomats in the past few months.
Portugal, Uganda, Singapore, UAE and the Philippines have all suspended relations or cut other ties.
But many North Korean missions around the world - and those it hosts - will remain open for business.
Some countries even appear to be stepping up ties, with Pyongyang co-operating with a number of African nations on construction projects and holding talks on energy and agriculture with others.
Diplomatic links with North Korea, however, are deeply flawed.
Only six of the 35 member nations of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) - the international organisation of the world's most developed economies - maintain a mission in Pyongyang.
The United States has never established diplomatic relations with North Korea. Neither have Japan, or South Korea.
This means the US and some of its closest Asian allies rely on other countries for the sparse information coming out of Pyongyang.
This comes from countries such as Germany, the UK and Sweden, who share a compound there and, so far, have stopped short of recalling their ambassadors, or closing North Korea's missions in their capitals.
North Korea's network of missions in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa has been crucial for generating income, both legal and illicit, and evading the ever-expanding dragnet of UN and unilateral sanctions.
The embassies are largely self-funding, and allegations that they operate as fronts for illicit activities are rife.
European hosts of North Korean missions have complained of embassy buildings being illegally sublet to local businesses.
On both sides, intelligence agencies are suspicious of each other's officials.
They closely monitor diplomats and subject them to tight travel restrictions.
North Korea also places its own diplomats under intensive counter-intelligence scrutiny, fearing they could defect.
Given all of these problems, the obvious question is what can diplomacy achieve?
For some socialist or communist countries, such as Cuba, Venezuela and Laos, a relationship with North Korea brings a semblance of mutual ideological support.
But these days, such fraternal diplomatic ties are sustained more by a common strand of anti-Americanism than shared ideology - as is also the case with Syria and Iran.
Wherever they are posted, Pyongyang's diplomats are expected to foster pro-government support and rebut "hostile" sentiments.
Western countries that host missions and remain in Pyongyang, such as Germany, see value in keeping diplomatic lines of communication open, believing diplomacy is the best solution for the Korea problem.
They can also provide an invaluable service: it was Swedish diplomats, for example, who were permitted access to American student Otto Warmbier, who was arrested in Pyongyang in 2016 and died shortly after his return to the US.
A former UK ambassador to Pyongyang argued that an embassy there was worthwhile, cost little and would be "in a good position to act as the international community's eyes and ears in a potentially volatile situation".
The US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has indicated that the US may now be now willing to talk to North Korea if it "earns its way back to the table".
But whatever the Trump administration's line on the value of diplomacy - either with "the Hermit State" or the rest of the world - the fragile state of North Korea's diplomatic network is the exception in the modern era.
Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.
The Goals of Communism
(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
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