Bureau 39: Sometimes known as "Office 39." It refers to a shadowy agency that manages the North Korean leadership's slush fund gained mainly from illicit business dealings such as selling drugs, pirating cigarettes and high quality counterfeit U.S. $100 notes known as "super dollars." Reputedly operating since 1974 and housed in a well-guarded, nondescript concrete building in Pyongyang, it reports directly to the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un. He dispenses the money to the elite to win their loyalty.
DMZ: World-renowned wildlife sanctuary between North and South Korea. Actually it is an abbreviation for demilitarized zone, a four km-wide buffer zone that stretches 151 miles across the Korean peninsula. Almost no humans venture into this zone, so it has become a kind of informal sanctuary for all kinds of birds and beasts that have vanished from other parts of Korea. Among them, the Manchurian crane, the Korean wildcat and small Korean bears. They face few predators, except, possibly, land mines.
Foal Eagle: The designation for annual joint South Korean and U.S. forces maneuvers, usually held at the beginning of March and extending into April. They involve thousands of U.S. forces, both stationed in Korea and from bases abroad, and tens of thousands of South Korean troops. It is probably the largest such exercise in the world. Foal Eagle takes place in the rear area and is labeled as being purely defensive. North Korea, however, considers the exercises a dress rehearsal for an invasion. In recent years Foal Eagle has been especially controversial; taking place against the backdrop of provocations, such as the 2010 sinking of a Korean corvette and later missile and nuclear tests in the North. Pyongyang also objects to their continuing into April when they celebrate the birth of Kim Il-sung.
Northern Limit Line: A vaguely defined unofficial border between the western reaches of North and South Korea and a source of continuing trouble between Seoul and Pyongyang. A quick look at a map shows that the eastern side of South Korea is cleanly demarked, but the other side of the country meanders westward through numerous small islands. The line was drawn unilaterally by the United Nations following the end of the Korean War, but it is not recognized by Pyongyang, which says the line should have been drawn further south. Over the years, hundreds of fishermen from both sides have been seized by rival navies. The two navies fought skirmishes in 1999, 2002 and 2009. The most serious provocations came in 2010 with the sinking of the South Korean corvette Cheonan and the murderous North Korean artillery bombardment of the island of Yeonpyeong.
NK08: NATO designation for a mysterious North Korean intermediate-range missile that was first unveiled at a military review in April 2012 to honor the anniversary of the birth of Kim Il-sung. The missile was displayed on a wheeled mobile launcher believed to have been supplied by the Chinese, giving the North Koreans, for the first time, road mobile long-range missile capability. That is different from the Taepodong-2 long-range missile that is launched from a known, fixed location and only after days of careful fueling and other preparations. When first displayed, some observers claimed it was a mockup. But Americans are reportedly concerned enough about this missile to deploy additional missile interceptors to Alaska.
One, One, Three (113): The number to call in South Korea if you spot a North Korean spy.
OPLAN 5027: The joint South Korean and American operations plan for full-scale war on the Korean Peninsula, first produced after the Korean War and regularly updated to consider new conditions, including biological and chemical attacks and presumably nuclear attacks as well. Early versions anticipated troops falling back to a defense position near Seoul and holding on until the arrival of large reinforcements from the U.S. It anticipated needing more than 600,000 American troops. As this is more than the ground forces of the U.S. Army today, it is assumed that it now depends more heavily on precision air strikes, possibly even drones.
"The Rose of Sharon Blooms Again": The title of a pan-Korean, ultra-nationalist thriller by Kim Jin-myung published in 1993. In it a South Korean scientist collaborates secretly with North Korea to build an atomic bomb, which is dropped on Tokyo. It was hugely popular in Korea, not so popular in Japan. The book was published before North Korea exploded the first of three atom bomb tests. The Rose of Sharon is the national flower of South Korea. Despite its name, it is a hibiscus.
"Sea of fire": What North Korea, through the voice of the Korean Central News Agency, regularly threatens will be the fate of South Korea's capital Seoul or U.S. military bases, consumed in "a sea of fire" if they don't behave. When the threat was first issued in 1994, it caused deep fear and outrage among the capital region's 10 million inhabitants, although now they are used to it. Although the threat is made frequently whenever Pyongyang is irritated about something, such as joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises, it is not entirely empty. Seoul is close to the border with North Korea, and the mountains behind the boundary in North Korea are said to be stocked with long-range artillery within range of the city. The North also possesses short-range missiles and claims to have placed a nuclear warhead on one of them.
Uijongbu Corridor: The main northern invasion route leading directly to Seoul. North Korean soldiers and tanks poured down the Uijongbu Corridor in the June 1950 invasion of South Korea. It was the primary attack artery over the next three years as United Nation's forces advanced and retreated. For more than 50 years the U.S. Second Infantry Division was deployed to block another advance down the Corridor. As part of a general realignment of forces in South Korea, the 2nd Infantry will be deployed to a new base south of Seoul.
Yongbyon North Korea's main nuclear weapons development site, located about 90 km north of Pyongyang. The main facilities include a 5 MWe Magnox nuclear reactor, which is believed to be the source of plutonium for the country's atomic bomb program, a fuel fabrication plant, a fuel reprocessing plant and associated technical training schools. More recently, Western visitors have observed construction at Yongbyon of a new 30-50 MWe light water reactor and a surprisingly sophisticated uranium enrichment plant to supply fuel for the new reactor and possibly weapons grade uranium for bombs. The facility -- constructed with help from the Soviet Union -- dates back to the 1960s, but really became active in the 1980s, eventually leading to major confrontations with neighbors and the U.S. Washington considered destroying these facilities with air strikes, but settled on the 1994 Agreed Framework that froze nuclear activities until 2002, when the new administration in Washington, charging that Pyongyang was secretly seeking to enrich uranium, suspended its part of the agreement. North Korea then "unfroze" its nuclear program.