12 January, 2003

North Korea

Right at this moment many people especially those in the U. S. A. and South Korea are responding to recent North Korean policy changes with fear and condemnation.

But, to deal with the situation in a just and proper manner and not to prejudicially lay blame on only one of the parties, we must study the causal relationships of the case.

Although chronologically correct, since I'm too busy and it's not my job to provide detailed dates, the latter is all approximate.

There had been treaties between North Korea and the U.S. A. for the former not to test its long-range missiles or develop nuclear weapons in exchange for American supply of crude oil. Unfortunately, even though in around 1998 North Korea voluntarily imposed a moratorium on its missiles testing and up to about 10 days ago allowed a U. N team to monitor its nuclear reactors, the U.S. never delivered the oil and about a year ago American president George Bush read out his speech writer David Frum's Axis of Evil speech to include North Korea, Iraq, and Iran.

Certainly none of these nations was involved in the 2001 September 11 terrorist attack on New York. Yet, we know that Iraq may be attacked in the near future by the U. S. A. Now, would North Korea be next? After all, it is also one of the three members of the Axis of Evil.

More recently about a month ago North Korea further offered to ratify a treaty of mutual non-aggression with the U.S. The latter responded with " we won't be blackmailed." Does that make sense? It means only that the United States reserves that right of first strike against North Korea which was trying to guarantee peace with a treaty of non-aggression. It certainly wasn't out to launch an attack on the USA. That kind of hostile attitude surely limits North Korean interpretation to the one suggested in the preceding.

If so, North Korea had to seriously rethink its policies. A nation faced with a potential of being preemptively attacked by a military superpower certainly cannot afford to limit its own weapons development. It is therefore not surprising that North Korea might re-start testing its long-range missiles and develop nuclear war heads. However, it would do so only if the U.S. A. maintains its current level of hostility towards it.

In other words, North Korea is not going to disarm itself in face of threat. The only way to diffuse the conflict is for the U.S. A. not to pose a tactical nuclear attack threat on North Korea.

See who is bigger and who can really pose a threat. There is no more Stalin to tell North Korea to annex the south by force.