North Korea

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This entry was published at least two years ago (originally posted on July 21, 2003). Since that time the information may have become outdated or my beliefs may have changed (in general, assume a more open and liberal current viewpoint). A fuller disclaimer is available.

The whole North Korea nuclear thing is freaking me out, precisely because we seem to be doing nothing at all about it. Not good.

5 thoughts on “North Korea”

  1. Yeah, I was thinking about that this weekend, too, and it got me to thinking about national sovereignty. Q: Do nations–whether we like their politics or leadership or not–have the right to develop their own weapons programs. Q: Will we go into every nation (Iraq, No. Korea, Iran, and..?) we don’t want having nukes and take them down? What about China?

    BTW, the live comment preview is a bit of a pain. Just a personal preference, there. :-)

  2. (grin) No worries on the preference — I like it, Prem likes it, you don’t. Two outta three ain’t bad. ;)

    As far as the questions you raised, I’m torn. I’ve never liked the US’s self-appointed role of global police force (whether or not it’s wanted or supported by any other nation). At the same time, I’m none to happy with the idea of more and more nuclear weapons popping up all over the globe. I just keep thinking that there’s got to be a middle ground solution somewhere (preferably one invovling the UN and negotiations, rather than blatant sabre-rattling). As was pointed out in the post I linked to, N. Korea is open to negotiations:

    North Korea restated its demand Monday for a nonaggression treaty with the United States, despite growing expectations it would agree to talks that also involve China. “If the United States dropped its hostile policy toward the DPRK (North Korea) and legally committed itself to nonaggression, the latter would be ready to dispel the U.S. concern,” the state-run KCNA news agency said.

    Seems to me that that’s not a bad place to start — if only we would.

  3. of course they have the ‘right’ by their own sovreignty to do what they like in their own country. there isn’t some big government of nations that doles out rights after all, and we certainly don’t have the authority to say so.

    that doesn’t mean they should do it though.

    and that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t react to the choices other nations make. it would be nice if our reactions were a little more logical and supported, though.

  4. Kirsten, you make a good point — it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t react. As far as our reactions being more logical and supported, a thought that comes immediately to mind is how unique each situation tends to be based on the cultural and historical backdrop.

    And I concur that there’s nothing soothing about more nukes springing up around the globe, but it occurs to me that in dealing with the No. Koreans we’re really dealing with a Cold War-era, hard-line communist regime. Everything old is new again, it seems.

  5. I wonder when someone will go to the US and say “hey, we don’t want you having nukes or biological weapons” and they’ll say “but we need them to defend against other aggressive nations who have them”, etc, and the circle goes on.

    I wonder if you think about it on a smaller scale.. ie: you have a gun for protection of your home and property because you fear the Big Bad Man(tm) coming into your house and doing Bad Things(tm). Basically change handgun into WMD and you’ve got the same issues.

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