Since the beginning of civilization, man has always worked for the betterment for himself and his tribe. With the passing of time, man’s loyalty shifted from his tribe to his nation and the nature of development changed too with defense coming in as a major area. What started as stone spear transformed into guns, tanks and the dreaded nuclear bomb.
After the holocaust the power of nuclear bomb was understood by the world as the amount of destruction it left still strikes horror for humanity. Today countries having nuclear bombs are much more powerful than what were unleashed on Japan and it is very easy for the entire globe to get annihilated within a blink of an eye. After the Second World War, Japan’s territory of the Korean peninsula was divided by two super powers Russia and the United States of America. This was an era of the beginning of the cold war as two super powers of the world were always at loggerheads in the race for development and making allies. The northern portion of the Peninsula was under the Russian supervision and the southern came under the supervision of the United States of America. With this division came the establishment of two countries South Korea on 15th August 1948 and North Korea on 9th September 1948. Both the countries developed a sense of rivalry mainly because of their host nations Russia and the United States of America. Russia introduced a communist government in North Korea which was greatly dissuaded by the American sponsored South Korean government. The two Korean states started resent each other until aggression could be seen on the borders.
North Korea’s relationship with South Korea had always been sour since the division, but it took a major bating when North Korea attacked South Korea and captured Seoul. However with help of the United States of America and United Nations, North Korea was not only defeated in the aggressive invasion, but also United nation army and the American army invaded North Korea in the pretext of unifying Korea under the political leadership of Syngman Rhee. North Korea was supported by Russia and even China as there were evidences of North Korean army having their depots inside Chinese territories. As time passed by ‘The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’ or North Korea as it is popularly known started turning its affiliations to China. The following will explain North Korea’s affiliations to China and the realization of its ambition of nuclear weapons:
‘The People’s republic of China continued to conduct nuclear tests, claiming that was still far behind other nuclear powers in terms of the total number of nuclear explosions. While all the countries in the Asia pacific region particularly Japan, India, Philippines, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and even South Korea were deeply alarmed by and actively protested against these accelerated nuclear preparations, North Korea turned out to be in fact the only state in East Asia that praised the nuclear ambitions of Beijing. This fact reflected Pyongyang’s far reaching geostrategic calculations. During the s Sino-Soviet confrontation, Pyongyang gave its clear preference to Beijing’. (Moltz, Mansourov .Pg 141).
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in terms of economic growth is very less developed and the country’s ambitions always to pursue war against South Korea had its maintenance which till date North Korea is funding from its impoverished resources. The country can be considered as of the weakest economically developed countries of Asia, also because it was hit by floods and famine in successive years and also the economic support was withdrawn from Russia. North Korea’s idea to blackmail the world with starting up nuclear facilities has made the country even more impoverished due to economic sanctions from the entire international community barring Russia and China. North Korea’s pathetic strategy of blackmailing the world on being nuclear capable and using the country’s entire resources to fund its nuclear enriched reactors has got world wide criticism. North Korea which had been the puppet of Russia initially and now has a strong ally in China has been demanding and blackmailing the world for resources on the basis of stopping their nuclear reactors that would be used for making atomic bombs. The US agreed to its demands and gave in lot of oil and other resources for it to stop its nuclear reactors. However since the time i.e. in the early 90s till date North Korea has only been hypocritical to its stance on aiming for nuclear disarmament. The country’s first major move that openly threatened America came on 28th September 2004 when it was declared by an official of the country that plutonium from 8000 spent fuel rods were used to make nuclear weapons for its direct threat from America. By 12th may 2005, South Korea which had already been providing aids and oil along with other resources still continues to ignore the hostilities from North Korea and gave them huge amounts of electricity to end their nuclear weapons program. As time passed by North Korea continue with its ambition of being a nuclear armed state and finally after a lot of opposition did its first nuclear testing on 9th October 2006 which was confirmed by western scientists. North Korea was transpired of their technology by main help from China and Pakistan.
Today North Korea’s policy for international communities itself is a confused one, as it has crossed all levels of hypocrisy. On one level it talks about shutting down its reactors and take aides from South Korea, United States of America and other countries and on the hand it talks of being nuclear capable as a sovereign right of the nation. More complications have developed recently where it has been proven North Korea’s strong hand in furnishing the technology to hostile countries like Iran, which has vowed to spread the technology with the whole of Middle East. North Korea however after submersing in to the demands of the United States of America of closing down the nuclear reactor has sought huge economics aides from the US and South Korea in particular. One of the most recent problems North Korea faced was its two sided policy on nuclear sidings. The following will piece of news will explain North Korea’s recent activity of fooling international committees:
‘Washington over the weekend urged the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) for “full disclosure” of its stashed nuclear materials, as the de-nuclearisation process met a new allegation concerning an aluminum pipe tainted with enriched uranium. The new suspicion is considered key to proving the DPRK has a clandestine uranium enrichment program. Rice’s message came after news reports in Washington said that scientists found traces of enriched uranium on smelted aluminum tubing provided to the United States by DPRK. The hand-over was originally an attempt by the North to quell the suspicion of a UEP, the reports said. They suggested further complications in the declaration step delayed by the North, which remains hesitant to acknowledge the widely suspected UEP. The DPRK only admits to developing nuclear weapons through a more accessible method of reprocessing plutonium. Washington has been suspecting the DPRK of importing aluminum tubes from such countries as Russia to build centrifuges for running the UEP’ (China daily).
Also North Korea’s most recent evidence of axing up with countries those are against America and Israel has been the one of the latest hindrance of relations with United States over its nuclear policy. The latest development of North Korea’s relationship with anti American government is indicated by the following piece:
‘.Washington has accused the North, which conducted its first nuclear test in 2006, of refusing to address suspicions that it pursued a uranium-based nuclear program and transferred nuclear technology to Syria’ (Fox news).
The South Korean and the American army joint exercise has also been one of the highlight of the North Korea’s nuclear policy problems, as the government considers it to be a threat for them and has threatened both the countries of consequences. The fact of the matter is North Korea takes help from Seoul and Washington and in the end threatens and blackmails them with its nuclear capacity. Today if there has been a sudden shift towards paradigm behavior for co-operating in shutting its reactor and stopping all process of making any further nuclear arms is because firstly economically the country is going more into the pits and also it has a major fear of an American army air strike on its nuclear reactors which in the end would be disastrous for the country.
Works Cited:
1) James Clay Moltz, Alexandre Y. Mansourov, “The North Korean Nuclear Program: Security, Strategy, and New Perspectives”. Published in 1999 by Routledge.
2) China Daily, “Korean nuke talks hit another stumbling block”. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2007-12/24/content_6343406.htm
3) Fox News, “U.S. Diplomat Returns From North Korea With Boxes of Nuclear Records”. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,354850,00.html
4) http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/10/03/nkorea.timeline/index.html
