One of the first things that has come to my mind when hearing about the North Korean missile launch is how stupidly everyone is reacting to the crisis. People are acting as if the North Korean missile launch is some new controversy, and they are just now a rogue state, and they are acting irrationally and are further isolating themselves from the international community.
First of all, it should be noted that we never signed a peace treaty with north Korea after the 1950-1953 war.
That is correct. The North Korean war was just a “police action,” as the term was dubbed by Harry Truman. There has been no official war since World War II. We did sign an armistice treatment with North Korea that set up the North and the South boarders, but we are certainly not at peace with them. Supposed policy experts such as Bruce Klinger, a former CIA analyst who works at the heritage foundation; Victora Cha, former director of Asian Affairs at the Bush administration; and John Park, a Korean expert at the US institute of Peace, all are questioning North Korea’s move.
President Obama even wants to meet with Kim Jong-Un, despite failures of both Bill Clinton and George Bush to meet with the North Korean government to settle something and make a deal so they would shut down their nuclear power plants. It is obvious that something isn’t working right. The North Korean government is sneaky. The United States may not be at war with the North Korean government, but it certainly is not seeing eye to eye with them.
Under a realist paradigm in international relations, the North Korean government is acting perfectly rational. It is trying to seek nuclear weapons in order to enhance its power. It sees the outside world as a threat rather than potential allies. Therefore, it wants to build up an arms race to combat its potential enemies. North Korea does not see itself as acting offensively. It sees itself cut off from the international community. Their actions should not puzzle anyone. They are completely logical, and if we were in North Korea’s position we would probably do the same.
As long as we, the international community, continue to play this game of carrot and stick with North Korea- nothing will ever get done. What the international community needs to do is recognize the situation for what it is. We are not at peace with North Korea. End of story.
It does not matter whether North Korea is a rogue state or a dictatorship. The problem with North Korea is that we have not had a cessation of hostilities. Trying to stop a country that wants nuclear weapons from getting nuclear weapons when it already has them is futile. We can’t turn the clock back. We should recognize our situation for what it is and work towards a better future and maybe even open up North Korea like we did China in the 1970s and try to liberalize their economy. These hostilities, however, are not helpful.
