North+Korea.+Is+it+a+future+threat?

The DPRK: Are they still a threat?
1) How large of a Military and political threat to the United States and its interests  could North Korea become under this new leadership?

 With a leadership change in North Korea immanent how will there policies regarding the United States and its allies change. Will they become more aggressive militarily or open up to the rest of the world and join in the world economy.

Clemens Jr., Walter C. "North Korea's Quest for Nuclear Weapons: New Historical Evidence."// Journal of East Asian Studies // 10.1 (2010): 127-54. // Academic Search Premier //. Web. 2 Nov. 2010. .

This article deatails how the North Korean's nuclear came to be and how strong it is today. This will be very helpful in my paper because their nuclear program is a huge interest of mine and will be one of the big topics in my paper.

Cockburn, Alexander. "The ‘Rogue Nation’ Contest." // The Nation // 29 June 2009: 9. // Academic Search Premier //. Web. 25 Oct. 2010. .

The source is from a magazine called the “The Nation” and is written by Alexander Cockburn. Both the author and the magazine have left biases but are not extreme by any case but are very credible.  The article is mainly about North Korea’s continuing aggression when it come to nuclear weapons but how they might not such a rouge nation as we all think there are. <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I really like the point about how North Korea sentenced two female journalists to 25 year prison sentences in one of the harshest labor camps in the north. Then how he compared that to how the American government did the a similar thing to the Cuban investigators in Miami. <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">When the authors compares the responses to the of the US to under ground nuclear test and the incident between the British and the French nuclear subs it is a bit confusing. I don’t totally understand the correlation between the two. I can see why the 3 nations responded to the accident between the 2 subs. You generally keep things like pretty quite till you know exactly what occurred. I don’t see how he connected the separate incidents and made the conclusion of who was the rouge nation.

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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 32px;">Lee, Dong Sun. "A Nuclear North Korea and the Stability of East Asia: a Tsunami on the Horizon?" // Australian Journal of International Affairs // 61.4 (2007): 436-54. // Academic Search Premier //. Web. 27 Oct. 2010. <http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=6&hid=107&sid=12b92350-e653-4649-93b2-9cd052ba9cf8%40sessionmgr113&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=aph&AN=27406243>.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The source is a article from the Australian Journal of International Affairs. Which is Australia's premiere journal in this subject. It is a very credible source and does not seem to have an bias in it. It looks like the author is very knowledgeable in the field that he is talking about. This source talks about what the impacts of North Korea being armed with nuclear weapons.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The points that the author is making is that North Korea is a threat to the US and the Eastern Asian nations with its nuclear weapons. It could severally compromise the stability of the region. Even though their nuclear arsenal will most likely not help the DPRK win a major war with the South and the United States. They could not use the weapons on major South Korean target then expect to send in troops. The debris and nuclear fallout would slow down their advance that it be disastrous for them. It would give time for the US military to mobilize and help the South Korean military back on its feet. Also the amount of nuclear material that they have available is so small that it would not be a huge impact on its enemies if deployed.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">I really like the point the author made about how it would not be to North Korea’s advantage to launch a nuclear attack against the south. It makes a lot sense especially if they plan to invade and take over the south. The north would sustain for too many casualties to exposure to nuclear radiation if they were to launch a preemptive nuclear strike on the south.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The ideas about how if a North Korean offensive would be successful it would almost have to be German style blitzkrieg. If they fail with total inhalation of South Korean forces before the US has time to mobilize its forces then the chances of a successful invasion of the south would be very small. This shows just how strong the author thinks our military is. And I agree with him. I think that in a conventional battlefield, which Korea would be, the US cannot be stopped by any army on earth. The current war in Afghanistan and the Iraqi war are pure guerilla wars. There is no standing armies with a government and state to back them up. They are independent fighting forces that use their knowledge of the land, language, and culture to fight the US with results falling in their favor sometimes. North Korea is a conventional military. They have a Navy, Air Force, and Army. With planes, boats, subs, tanks, and WMD that can be deployed with ICMBs. Even though they have millions of people who are willing to fight our far superior technology and training would prove no match for their unequipped, poorly trained, and aging and outdated armed forces.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 32px;">Stossel, Scott. "North Korea: The War Game." // Atlantic Monthly // July-Aug. 2005: 97-108. // Academic Search Premier //. Web. 2 Nov. 2010. <http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=5&hid=113&sid=3430de0c-da21-45d0-aab9-b4433dc9c3fd%40sessionmgr114&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=aph&AN=17234108>.

This article talks a lot about the current situation in North Korea concerning their nuclear weapons and the ability to attack the US. It also talks about the options the US has if it decides to attack the DPRK. I think it will be very useful because it has a lot of information on North Korea's nuclear threat and i want that to be a good portion of my paper.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times;"> <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Taylor, Brendan. "Attack North Korea: Why War Might Be Preferred." Comparative Strategy. By Robert Ayson. 3rd ed. Vol. 23. Abingdon: Routledge, 2004. 263-79. Academic Search Premier. Web. 27 Oct. 2010. <http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=107&sid=12b92350-e653-4649-93b2-9cd052ba9cf8%40sessionmgr113&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=aph&AN=14132363>

<span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The sources a scholarly article and is from a book called Comparative Strategy. It is a book about strategic thought and how history has influence international relations. There are two authors for the article, Robert Ayson is a professor a strategic studies at the University of Wellington in New Zealand. Brendan Taylor is an expert on strategy, defense and the korean peninsula security issues. It will provide a lot of information on why military action would be the ideal way to deal with North Korea it also gives reason why the US will not launch an offensive in the near future.

<span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">As on now the chance of the US going to war with the DPRK is very low. There are several good reasons for that fact. The US is still at war in Afghanistan. It has tied up a large portion of our military and is costing us more and more everyday. It would be extremely hard to launch an offense attack on a country that has a formidable armed force with most of our forces in the Mid East. Another major reason is our important Asian relationships and how they would be affected by such a large scale war that could involve nuclear weapons. Our relations with the Atlantic alliances have been strained from the war on terror a similar effect could occur with our Asian allies if we lead an offensive again the DPRK. Also the important economic alliance with china might become a big issue due to china's close proximity to the DPRK. It is also unlikely that the current administration would be for any sort of offensive military action no matter who it is against. But on the other side it might be to our advantage to make an offensive strike against the DPRK sometime in the future. One of the major reasons why an attack would be considered is the DPRK's increasing aggressiveness towards the US and its allies. In the last decade there has been several incidents with the DPRK. They have test launched several Taepo-Dong I ballistic missiles, could be used as a delivery method for nuclear warheads, and the expansion of their nuclear program. They have expelled International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA) agents and have withdrawn from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. In the minds of the public the DPRK is a human rights disaster. We mostly hear about the horrible conditions in which its citizens live in. The Bush Administration had harsh criticism for North Korea. President Bush even went as far as to call them the "axis of evil". A main argument that war with the DPRK would be a viable option is the fact that our armed forces are so much more capable than those of the DPRK. Many of there systems are aging and many have already become obsolete. also training and moral of the troops has also been reported to be way down. This leaves them vulnerable to highly trained and skilled soldiers of the US military. We have seen great success in recent years with the defeat of much larger armies than our own.

<span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">I really like the points made about the capabilities of our military versus those of the North Korean's because it gives concrete reasons why a war with North Korea would not be a total and complete disaster like many people are saying.

<span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">After reading the article i am thinking that an attack on the DPRK in the future would be a very good option for the United States and its allies if North Korea does become a much larger threat than it is today. we would want to stop this regime before they become too powerful for the rest of the world to deal with them.