Are we on the brink of war? For over half of a century, the United States of America and North Korea have been at odds. The current state of the relationship is worse than ever, and the future is uncertain. Many citizens do not understand why the relationship is so poor or what caused the deteriorating affiliation, and many people around the globe fear for the future. I argue that the conflict roots from a long line of assertive events that have built over time, further angering both Washington and Pyongyang, potentially to a point of war. This conflict is astonishingly real and has the potential to turn into a nuclear war if either side allows it to get that far. This conflict is not getting the attention it deserves, as the tension between the United States and North Korea is the closest we’ve come to nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis. It is extremely important that an agreement is made soon between Washington and Pyongyang before either leader makes a rash decision.  

The birth of the negative relationship between the United States and North Korea occurred in 1950, the Korean War. After World War II, the Korean Peninsula was divided into two separate entities, North Korea and South Korea. Kim Il-sung, the first dictator of North Korea, attempted to reunite the peninsula, so he invaded the southern region. The United States sent in troops just weeks later, thus starting the Korean War. After U.S. forces nearly pushed the North Koreans to the Chinese border, China itself sent in troops, and the war halted where it began; at the 38th parallel. The war decimated the northern region, as “…the biggest goal of most North Koreans was survival,” (Kim). “The United States dropped 635,000 tons of bombs in Korea, compared with the 503,000 tons dropped in the entire Pacific theater during World War II,” (Aldag). This makes it clear that the United States was determined to stop Kim Il-sung’s spread of communism, and they would do so by any means. “Air Force commanders complained that they’d run out of targets,” further proving that the United States’ military annihilated the region (Aldag). This personally infuriated and insulted Kim Il-sung, so during and after the war, the North Korean government saw this as an opportunity to unite their people, by declaring the United States the ultimate evil. “…Activities aimed at publicizing the brutality of the United States were carried out in North Korea through exhibitions and street broadcasting,” (Kim). These activities heavily exaggerated the truth to the point that the actual events that took place in the Korean War were far different than the events told by the North Koreans. “From the very real events of the Korean War, North Korea’s propagandists have created a version of history that is designed to keep the shock and horror alive,” (Aldag). Thus, began the narrative on the northern Korean Peninsula that the United States initiated the war, and decimated the lands with no regard, while North Korean citizens were treated as though they weren’t human. Kim Il-sung had a more unified nation than ever before, and he would attempt to use this to get just what he wanted; a North Korean global power. Over the latter decades of the 20th century, North Korean leadership recognized the only way to achieve this was through a nuclear missile program, the last thing the United States wanted. 

After the Korean War, Kim Il-sung implemented anti-America propaganda in nearly every aspect of North Korean life. Children as young as kindergarteners were taught to draw pictures of American soldiers being shot by North Korean citizens. The annual May Day military festival is held to flaunt the nations latest weapons, which would theoretically be used to destroy the United States of America. North Korean citizens are taught to hate the United States, and western culture in general, based on the false information their supreme leader plants into their heads, disabling them from access to any other information source. Kim Il-sung was a troubled man who was deeply offended by China and Russia’s reluctance to help North Korea in the Korean War, making him into a man that would trust no other nation, and he knew that it was up to him to make North Korea a world power. This ideology has been passed on to each of his heirs, with each leader seeming more intense and threatening than the last. Perhaps North Korea’s aggressiveness and reluctance to listen to other nations is largely due to this.  

The United States quickly recognized this hatred and has attempted to resolve the issue over the past half-century. Hundreds of political negotiations have taken place between the U.S. and North Korea, most of which eventually fail or are used as leverage for one side to receive something from the other. This strategy leads to a lack of trust between each nation, making the issue that much harder to resolve. North Korea best uses this strategy to enhance its nuclear missile program or uses the missile program as leverage to benefit another aspect of North Korean life. The Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations were the most engaging presidencies in terms of confronting North Korea over its nuclear missile program, but each has hopelessly made the situation worse.

 Each administration undermined the strategies of the previous, crushing any and all progress made in the years beforehand. President Clinton first attempted to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear missile program in the 1994 Agreed Framework. Pyongyang quickly grew impatient with Washington’s tempo of legislation on the matter, and “…the administration’s determination to tackle missile development and deployment, instead of confining itself to preventing exports, is likely to have contributed to Pyongyang’s mistrust,” (Farago). Despite numerous warnings from the United States, North Korea continued to develop and test nuclear missiles, which “…should have led the Clinton administration to re-energize its policy…[but] instead, the administration chose to ignore what the President referred to as a ‘laboratory effect’ and kept up pressure on Pyongyang to make more concessions in the missile talks,” (Farago). Clinton left office with little to celebrate over regarding the nuclear discussions with North Korea, and “in spite of North Korea’s willingness to make substantial concessions in the missile talks, almost four years of US-DPRK dialogue ended with no deal,” (Farago). As President Bush made his way into office, the talks became more aggressive, with Bush’s policy towards the matter being far more confrontational and direct than any administration before. North Korea saw no real threat and the CIA confirmed in 2001 that North Korea had increased its efforts to locate materials that would support a uranium program, which would support a nuclear missile program (Farago). As a result, “not only did the Americans spurn North Korean efforts to negotiate, they also tried to revise the Agreed Framework unilaterally,” (Farago). The situation seemed as it had turned to a poker game in which two players continue to raise the other, hoping the opponent will eventually fold. After the Agreed Framework eventually failed, the Bush administration decided to attempt to use China as a parental figure over North Korea so to speak, as well as including South Korea, Russia, and Japan, hoping the Kim Jong-il regime would be willing to listen. 

As a result, the Six-Party Talks opened, aimed at persuading all of North Korea’s nearby leaders to pressure North Korean leadership to accept a deal with the United States. However, this idea backfired, and many surrounding leaders wished the U.S. would not attempt to push North Korea into a corner (Farago). The Six-Party Talks resulted in North Korea vowing to desert its nuclear development programs. However, numerous political figures in Washington claimed the U.S. would still not be completely politically engaged with North Korea, due to their lack of human rights for their citizens (Farago). So ultimately, the discussions were yet again a failure. North Korea then continued to test their nuclear weapons, further angering Washington, but the sanctions placed on North Korea by the United States were faced with little agreement from other nations in the UN. After Bush’s terms in office little had changed between the United States and North Korea, with much progress needing to be made. “Mistrust and suspicion continued to govern American and South Korean thinking on North Korea after Barack Obama assumed office as U.S. president in January 2009,” (Farago). Proposed sanctions continued to be placed on North Korea after further missile tests, including that of a satellite in April 2009, yet China and Russia continued to defend North Korea, making it all the more difficult for the U.S. to make peace. The Obama administration was more patient with North Korea while still more aggressive than previous administrations, but North Korea continued to launch missile tests. After President Obama left office, the threat of a nuclear North Korea was bigger than ever. Washington’s efforts between Clinton, Bush, and Obama only pushed North Korea into farther developing their nuclear program, making progress in the wrong direction. This has led to an escalation in the hostility between the U.S. and North Korea, making the struggle all the more serious. 

Throughout all of the drama between the United States and North Korea, the leadership regimes in Pyongyang have been keen on developing their nuclear program in order to establish themselves as a global power. The issue has been alive for several decades now, and “the longer the problem of North Korea’s nuclear issue remains, the more the world becomes inured to it, and might become inclined to live with it,” (Hill). This is an unacceptable way of thinking because an unstable nation with nuclear weapons is a threat to all of mankind. In order to make serious progress towards disarming North Korea’s nuclear development program, Washington must look towards the interests of China and South Korea. Each of these nations is unsure of how to handle North Korea within their own governments, let alone among governments of other countries. Each North Korean dictator has recognized the difficulty of other nations to come together to help resolve the ongoing issue, so they have used this to their advantage to act as recklessly as they want. This makes disarming North Korea’s nuclear program even more difficult, so “the United States will have to play the missile defense card whether it wants to or not,” (Hill). Yet creating defense programs rather than attempting to solve the problem at hand could only make the situation worse, as well as provoke other nations to develop their own nuclear programs. “Pursuing North Korean denuclearization is best done in the context of working closely with South Korea and China, ensuring that both these countries are heavily incentivized to work with the United States,” (Hill). Each party involved in the conflict is looking to gain something out of it, contributing to the difficulty of the situation. North Korea is best using this strategy, using their nuclear program as leverage. “North Korea publicly obligated itself to abandoning all nuclear programs in return for security guarantees, economic and energy assistance, and a willingness to proceed with a peace treaty on the Korean Peninsula,” (Hill). Though this seems like real progress, North Korea has agreed to halt their nuclear programs numerous times, yet one party in the conflict endlessly angers another, resulting in an abandonment of any and all negotiations. With a regular change in power in Washington and a relatively new leader in Pyongyang, completely restarting negotiations every few years is far less than ideal, and will never allow the situation to be settled. As the situation gets older, it only seems to get more serious, so it is more important than ever that all parties come together to reach a resolution. Each nation must identify their own requirements to be drawn from a potential peace treaty, with China being the most important. China’s greatest fear is the mass immigration of North Korean refugees into the nation due to North Korea’s lack of human rights (Hill). If a policy can be drafted that would protect China from this potential issue, creating a peace treaty will be far easier. North Korea and China are more similar than different, so reaching an agreement is more likely than many would think, in terms of their history and government structure (Hill). These are two countries that want to support each other, but international affairs have made it very difficult. However, the United States continues to push China and other neighboring countries of North Korea into thinking that they are the enemy, and their … nuclear ambitions can finally be checked only through a combination of three elements: 1. A China that overcomes its mistrust of U.S. aspirations and concludes that, on balance, North Korea is somehow bad for business; 2. Close coordination with South Korea which prevents the reemergence of anti-American activities; and 3. The introduction and deployment of a missile-defense cooperation program between the United States and its South Korean and Japanese allies, (Hill).

If these three elements cannot be established, the situation between North Korean and the United States will become more dangerous than it already is. As the discussions between the United States and North Korea continue to dwindle, North Korea continues to develop its nuclear program. 

Many may argue that the United States’ relationship with North Korea is not as bad as it appears and is exaggerated in the media. “The change has been in the attention being paid to the rhetoric, not the rhetoric itself,” meaning threats have always been made between the two sides, now, however, the media pays much more attention to the issue (Fifield). Shen Dingli, deputy dean of the Institute of International Affairs at Fudan University (Shanghai), said “’no, their nuclear weapons are for self-defense, and they are aware the United States will wipe them off the Earth if they hit it,’” when asked whether North Korea would actually launch a nuclear attack (Fifield). North Korea has had chances to perform acts of war, but still, they did not follow their word. “In the dead of night on [September 23, 2017], American B-1B long range bombers, escorted by F-15 fighter jets, prowled along North Korea’s east coast, in one of the United States military’s most daring maneuvers on the peninsula in decades…but when those planes were near its shores, North Korea did nothing,” (Sang-hun). North Korea likes to act tough, but “…Pyongyang probably hopes China and South Korea will call for calm and restraint, while using Mr. Trump’s threats as justification to conduct another missile or nuclear test,” (Sang-hun). While this information would appear to show that threat of a nuclear war between North Korea and the United States is not likely, this is not the case. North Korea has ramped up their missile tests, with 22 missiles in 15 tests in 2017 alone, showing that both rhetoric and action have changed for the worse (O’Neill). To go along with their missile tests, “North Korea has invested heavily in cyberattack operations to disrupt its Western enemies,” (O’Neill). North Korea would not invest so heavily in their nuclear and technological development programs if it was not prepared to actually launch a strike. “Ignoring Mr. Trump’s threats, North Korea fired a missile over Japan, on August 29, prompting the country’s warning system to kick in, in a significant escalation of Kim Jong-un’s military posturing,” (Ryall). North Korea’s actions over the past year or so prove that both sides are serious enough to prompt a war that could turn nuclear, even if President Trump makes threats of his own. 

The lingering conflict between the United States and North Korea is not one that appears will vanish anytime soon. Both sides are acting more aggressive than ever, and just one rash decision could lead to a nuclear war. This struggle is very serious and should be treated as such, though many argue that the situation is exaggerated. In order to resolve the conflict, President Trump and Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un must meet face-to-face and reach an agreement. Our planet is far too civilized to start a war that would decimate it, and it is important that peace is reached sooner rather than later. Every American and North Korean should be concerned with this issue, as well as citizens of neighboring countries. Everyone can do their part to help dissolve the struggle, and today there are more ways than ever to do this, with social media being the most useful. Whether the media acts like it or not, this growing conflict is incredibly severe and sensitive and must be treated as such, or we could be headed for a war, unlike anything we have ever seen before. Will you allow the struggle to get this far?
