Power can be defined as the capacity or ability to influence and direct the behavior of others over the course of events. Throughout history leaders of nations have spurned nationalism within their people to gain power throughout the world. In the 1920’s the British Empire was in control of over 458 million people and had influence in many different parts of the world (Luscombe). During World War II Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany terrorized all of Europe and nearly gained power over an entire continent. Post World War II the United States and Russia fought a Cold War leaning heavily on the production of Nuclear Weapons. The British Empire, Nazi Germany, The United States, and Russia all took a common route to gain power. All of those nations had a strong military with superior technology and used these to gain influence and control, whether for good or evil. On August 6, 1945 the path to power changed dramatically (History). The United States dropped a nuclearized atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan to halt fighting in the Pacific. Today, although the power of these weapons has increased exponentially, the passageway remains the same to becoming a powerful nation. Nine countries own and have the ability to use nuclear weapons. Out of these nine nations, North Korea seems to be the most unpredictable. In 2006, their erratic leader announced they had gained power and influence in the world by the creation of a nuclear weapon. 

While nuclear weapons have been around for half a century, a new threat has appeared over the last ten years from North Korea. This threat encompasses Americans everyday life and is a major current event. As Donald Trump becomes the 45th president of the United States, how will he deal with a now nuclearized North Korea? As political pundits and congress argue throughout the day and well into the night, Donald Trump should heed advice from others as well as do plenty of research before making decisions. The goal of diplomacy is to maintain the safety between Americans and the rest of the world. Keeping this in mind, Donald Trump should continue to work on his relationship with North Korea in order to prevent nuclear warfare and prevent the loss of American life. He can accomplish this by continuing diplomatic talks with North Korean government, while also placing pressure on China’s government in Beijing to help remove North Korea’s Nuclear weapons. Other, more serious options, involve the use of military force including a preemptive strike either from the United States or from other Asian countries like South Korea or Japan. 

Throughout both the Bush and Obama administrations the North Koreans have gained access to nuclear weapons. Because they have been able to continue to develop their nuclear arsenal without being halted, and now being a threat to the world, many Americans believe that both President Bush and President Obama have failed to protect the United States from Nuclear North Korea. Their failures were not through a lack of effort. Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of the Atlantic, writes: 

“No Country in recent years has consistently thwarted the national security objectives of U.S. presidents in the way that North Korea has. Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and their top advisers and negotiators have tried, and failed, to curtail North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. Their failures, though, were of the manageable sort: So far, at least, a misstep by an American president has not led to a nuclear exchange on – or beyond – the Korean Peninsula.” (Tharoor, Washingotn Post Article)

Donald Trump should take lessons learned from his predecessors into consideration before making his final policies. These lessons begin in the year 2006 when President Bush was in office. His administration was at the beginning of the nuclear North Korea phase and his top advisers did not feel cause fro alarm as North Korean leaders continued to issue threats to the United States. As a precaution, President Bush sent a team to North Korea to look at what North Korean nuclear facilities. Most of these men were from the University of Stanford, including Siegfried S. Hecker who was a senior fellow and affiliated faculty member at the Center for International Security and Cooperation. Their arrival in North Korea was welcomed by the Korean government who wanted felt that this visit from the Americans could give them a sort of legitimacy that they were lacking in regards to the rest of the world. While their, this group of Americans including Hecker were shown around the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Department of Atomic Energy, and the Military. Hecker concludes, “We found their pronouncements of having achieved a deterrent against the United States to ring hollow.” Hearing this President Bush felt the best course of action was to treat North Korea as a mother would her child with a bold, creative, and story-telling child. He entertained the North Korean government with diplomatic talks without believing their unrealistic tales of Nuclear weapons. Again, North Korea thought that in negotiating anything with the United States, they would be able to gain some kind of legitimacy amongst world superpowers. During the following years of 2007 and 2008 the Bush Administration was able to seize operations in the Yongbyon nuclear complex while also negotiating the return of international inspectors. Unfortunately, the North Koreans as well as the United States pulled back from Diplomatic talks during the summer of 2008. The North Koreans may have believed that the cost of losing their nuclear complex outweighed the legitimacy they were receiving in negotiating with the United States. President Obama during his 2007 campaign stated that he would be able to sit down and talk with the predecessor of the current leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Il, but ultimately failed to do so (Newton). President Obama would now have to try and revive these talks with President Bush’s departure in 2009. (Hecker)

In February of 2009, Hecker and his team would return to North Korea but this time on behalf of President Obama. Hecker would find things much different then the last time they visited in 2006. Things escalated quickly under Obama as the North Koreans conducted a second nuclear test, which proved to be successful. They then removed both the international inspectors and the American team from North Korean soil. Having conducted a successful nuclear test the North Koreans came back to the negotiating table in Washington seemingly with an advantage. President Obama rebuked North Korea’s diplomatic negotiation and thus the Korean’s continued their development of Uranium into Nuclear Weapons. From there the President placed economic sanctions on North Korea, but remained in a place of complacency as diplomatic talks between Washington and North Korea ceased to exist. These sanctions have also failed because the North Korean economy is dismal and the leader sees no problem in oppressing his people. Thus, with his population already starving, the North Korean leader could not care less about economic sanctions by the United States because there will be no changes in the North Korean economy. Hecker negatively describes Obama’s strategy as a “retreat to strategic patience.” With the sanctions proving to be ineffective, North Korean development continued to progress throughout the Obama administration. Donald Trump should take under consideration these previous mistakes and pursue alternate options that include China and other Asian countries. (Hecker)

At the end of the Obama administration, his team came to the conclusion that maybe China was the answer to solving the problem of North Korea. Rather then pressuring China, the United States and Donald Trump should persuade the Chinese government to ally with their biggest rivals the United States, Japan, and South Korea to stop the North Koreans. The Chinese have funded the North Korean’s food aid programs as well as with regime-sustaining energy. China is also North Korea’s biggest trading partner by providing nearly 90% of their energy, 80% of their consumer goods, and 45% of their food supply, alebeit all of those are part of a flailing economy. Because of this aid, the Chinese have more leverage then the United States over North Korea. In 1950, the Chinese invaded the Korean peninsula in order to save the North Koreans from being over run by the United States and South Korea. The Chinese government has a deep historical bond with the North Koreans and tend to believe that an unstable North Korea is more dangerous to Asian countries then a nuclearized North Korea, thus they continue to fund the regime. They also know that North Korea keeps the United States distracted with foreign policy in Asia and takes the attention and resources away from the Chinese. Along with the present, history can tell Donald Trump a lot about the relationship between China and the United States. (Bandow)

The United States and China’s past history has made both countries skeptical of each other’s intentions. The Chinese believe the United States may be using North Korea as an excuse to bring heavy military weapons to China’s doorstep. The U.S. used to have military weapons in both South Korea and Japan.  Doug Bandow of the CATO Institute believes that the objective of Donald Trump should be to “convince Beijing to back an allied denuclearization deal and cut all assistance to the North if North Korea says no.” Donald Trump has agreed with Bandow’s objective in the past by stating, “ China has to get involved. And China should solve that problem. And we should put pressure on China to solve the problem.” It seems that Donald Trump believes that China is the key to denuclearizing North Korea. The next step is to determine to either place pressure on China or to try and persuade China through means of diplomacy. Some politicians want Washington to place sanctions on China and thus start a trading war. With the influence that the Chinese have with trade throughout the world it would seem realistic for Donald Trump to first negotiate with China before taking harsh action. These negotiations would ultimately try to lead to leadership change in the North Korean government. Donald Trump believes that the North Korean leader is the key to their problems and thus said, “I would get China to make that guy disappear in one form or another very quickly.” This would be difficult as their leader Kim Jung-un is in clear control over his entire government and would have to involve the Chinese government coercing some of his high ranking official to move against him. While the United States sanctions have failed to halt the North Koreans, Donald Trump should consider asking China to implore their own sanctions. As previously stated, the Chinese are firmly in control of North Korea’s economy. Although the United States has a moral obligation to not place strong sanctions on North Korea because they know that the leader would let the people of North Korea suffer, maybe the Chinese government would not care. Turning North Korea into an even darker and hungrier place then it already is could incentivize the North Koreans to stand up to the government with some success. (Bandow)

With diplomatic negotiations and putting pressure on the Chinese discussed, there is one other avenue for Donald Trump to take. The United States has the ability to cause chaos, death, and destruction throughout the world by invading or shooting nuclear weapons at the Korean Peninsula. During the 1950’s the United States invaded Korea and according to CBS and the Pentagon 54,260 people died during that invasion. This invasion ultimately ended with what is in place now. With China and now North Korea obtaining Nuclear weapons, an invasion of that magnitude would cause that number to rise significantly. Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post brings up two other options relating to military intervention. A “reckless” plan he states, would be to launch a pre-emptive strike on their nuclear facilities. While this would complete the goal of diminishing North Korea’s nuclear capabilities, the ensuing war would be extremely destructive to Asia and all parties involved. The other option Charles brings up in his article would be to shoot down any missiles that North Korea might test launch. While this would be bold, it would send a clear message to North Korea that their actions are intolerable and would also not involve any human casualties. These routes are daring but would ultimately accomplish Donald Trump’s goal of ridding the Korean Peninsula of nuclear weapons. The only unknown is the response from other superpowers in the world such as Russia and China as well as the response from North Korea. 

Since taking office in November of 2016, the situation with North Korea has escalated and will continue to escalate until action is taken. Donald Trump needs to make a decision on what option to take regarding North Korea and their nuclear weapons. In making this decision he needs to, most importantly, take into consideration the safety of all Americans everywhere. He must remember that the goal in the end is to denuclearize North Korea, which, in other words, would be deescalating a conflict. Being bold and choosing the wrong path could take this already viable threat and conflict and turn it into devastation and destruction throughout the world. The world Donald Trump inherited is a very unstable place. With two major superpowers in China and Russia, rivals of the U.S. occupying Asia, Donald Trump has to be extremely careful in how he conducts his foreign policy. At times he has displayed a calm and disciplined temperament. Some might even say during those situations he acts presidential. Unfortunately at other times his temperament is seen as rash, forceful, and immature. (Morning Joe) Donald Trump displayed this temperament when asked during a press conference about a floating Russian ship off the East Coast. His response was, “The greatest thing I could do is shoot that ship that’s thirty miles offshore right out of the water “ (Beres). During these appearances Donald Trump does not seem as if he is the President of the United States. These changes in attitude make it difficult for people to predict what he is going to do next. While it makes some Americans uncomfortable, it makes foreign officials even more uncomfortable to try and predict what the American President’s next move will be on the world stage.  Some may say this keeps other countries guessing and thus makes it harder for them to take advantage of the United States. Regardless, in dealing with corrupt and manipulative governments like those in Russia, China, and North Korea, Donald Trump needs to remain calm and again keep in mind what truly matters, keeping all Americans safe. With the right advice, guidance, effort, and temperament, Donald Trump should be able to take the right action and denuclearize North Korea. In doing this, he will ultimately stabilize Asia and keep the United States and the world safe. 
