Back in the 19^th Century, a dynamic Europe challenged the major Asian nations.  Japan and China took different paths forward.  China clung to tradition and soon fell under foreign domination.  Japan copied the West in some things in order to be able to preserve its core culture in other things, and thrived.[1]  One thing the Japanese copied was imperialism.  They took over the neighboring Korean peninsula, long a tributary kingdom of China.  At the end of the Second World War, the Soviet Union and the United States agreed to divide Korea into temporary occupation zones pending the eventual unification of a single, independent Korean nation.

Almost immediately, the Cold War began.  The two great powers began to turn their occupation zones into rival states.  In June 1950, North Korea—armed and probably poked in the backside by the Russkies—invaded South Korea.  The Americans poured in troops, then kicked the behinds of the North Koreans.  Chased them all the way to the Yalu River (the border with China), while the American commander (Douglas MacArthur) talked about using nuclear weapons and carrying the war to newly-Communist China.  The Chi-Coms, in their turn, poured in troops.  Three years of gory war followed.[2]  The war ended in a truce in 1953.  Two new states emerged, North Korea and South Korea.

There are two things to say about North Korea since 1953.[3]  First, the country has become a hereditary monarchy with a dynasty of murderous tyrants at the helm.  Kim Jong Chee, Kim Jong Il and his blue-eyed boy, Kim Jong Un have ruled the country since 1950.[4]  Kim Jong Un took over in 2011.  Since then, he’s murdered a lot of government officials.  He’s also had his uncle and his half-brother killed.  He is sometimes described as “paranoid and unpredictable.”  Psychological diagnoses done from afar aren’t much use.  Still, he’s got some bolts loose.

Second, almost from the end of the war, North Korea sought nuclear weapons of its own.  This went nowhere for a long time: North Korea is mountainous, resource-poor, and Communist.  The search really began to gather steam in the 1990s.[5]  Then Kim Jong Il launched a huge effort to develop nuclear weapons.

Almost immediately, the North Koreans got caught.  In 1994 North Korea agreed to halt progress on its nuclear program in return for aid.  Then in 2003, North Korea announced it had a nuclear weapon.  The US, Russia, China, Japan, and South Korea all conferred with North Korea.  It was agreed that North Korea would halt its nuclear program in return for more aid.  Then, beginning in late 2015, North Korea began ahead testing bombs and the missiles to deliver them.  So the track record on negotiating with North Korea isn’t good.

Still, as late as March 2017, it seemed that North Korea remained three years away from posing a serious danger to other countries, most especially the distant United States.[6]  The Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama administrations all practiced a policy of “strategic patience.”  They hoped that a combination of economic sanctions, pressure on China, and computer hacking of the North Korean missile and atomic programs would keep the problem in check.  South Korea and Japan were within of North Korea’s medium range missiles.  So were the American military forces stationed in those countries.  However, ground-based and ship-based missile interceptor systems had a high rate of accuracy in tests.[7]

[1] See “The Last Samurai” (dir. Edward Zwick, 2003).

[2] See “Pork Chop Hill” (dir. Lewis Milestone, 1959).  Milestone also directed “All Quiet on the Western Front” (1930).  The messages of the movies differ in ways that reveal the change of public mindset across thirty years.

[3] “The growing threat from North Korea,” The Week, 31 March 2017, p. 11.

[4] That first one was just a joke, OK, a joke!

[5] Was this a response to the very evident failure of the model of the centrally-planned economy?  Both Russia and China soon abandoned the model.  Turmoil followed in both countries.

[6] “Shielding the homeland,” The Week, 19 May 2017, p. 11.

[7] One hundred percent test success for the Air Force’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system and eight-five percent success for the Navy’s Aegis system.