North Korea fields one of the world"s largest armies, tasked with annihilating U.S. and South Korean forces and reuniting the two Koreas. At the tip of the North Koreans" spear is the largest special operations force in the world. Here, a leading expert on the subject fully exposes and analyzes this dangerous threat. Updating and expanding his original 1988 study, Joseph Bermudez includes in this second edition all the new information gleaned from debriefings of North Korean special forces defectors, interviews with South Korean and U.S. intelligence personnel, recently declassified intelligence documents, and P"yongyang itself. An indispensable guide, the volume offers a gold mine of material about the special units and provides the first unclassified history of North Korea"s intelligence services. It details the organization and equipment of North Korea"s commandos, their missions and capabilities, and the threats they pose around the globe. The author fully describes the commandos" evolution from a small force in the 1950s to the present highly motivated, well-trained, and indoctrinated force of more than one hundred thousand troops, and he includes recently discovered material about their hidden role in the Korean War.