North Korea- Neotiations

I can’t really agree fully with either side on this issue. I’m sure I don’t have enough information to make an educated judgment. In Kang’s piece his message that “A North Korea that feels threatened and perceives the U.S. administration to be actively attempting to increase pressure on it is unlikely to trust the United States” made me wonder why we weren’t trying to work with North Korean. But then again what kind of “trust” could North Korea give us?

There does seem to be a “spiral of mistrust and misunderstanding” that has clouded any treaties between the United States and North Korea. Kang points out that the U.S. will only back down once North Korea stops their military programs. That doesn’t leave a lot of trust in the equation. The author claims that North Korea wants better relations with the U.S. and the U.S. should respond by “negotiating a nonaggression pact with the North”. Another interesting point brought up in the “yes” article was that, just because North Korea has nuclear weapons, doesn’t mean they are “more likely to engage in unprovoked military acts now than it was before”.

Victor D. Cha also had valid points about North Korea. It could be very harmful to simply let North Korea “off the hook” because they did violate laws and there should be a consequence. It would only “validate their perceived success of the strategy”. Cha declares that it must be the North Koreans who make the first moves forwards a solution because any move from the U.S. would be seen as forgiveness. Then he says that if North Korea is unwilling to cooperate with other countries, “there is no choice but isolation and containment”.

I’m not sure either one is right because they both have good and bad aspects. If the situation in North Korea continues to disintegrate there might be a point where the U.S. has to pick the lesser of two evils; I’m not sure which one is worse.