The world’s concerns are obvious and serious. The regime which controls North Korea has not changed its character since it took power in 1945. The three-generation dynasty of the father, Kim Il-sung; the son, Kim Jong-il; and the grandson, Kim Jong-il.
The nature of that regime is made clear by the fact that it unilaterally started the Korean War in 1950, causing the deaths of millions of people. The Kim dynasty obtained the ability to produce nuclear weapons in 2006, during the reign of Kim Jong-il. The regime has periodically attempted to intimidate the world by detonating atomic weapons and by test-flying missiles capable of delivering those weapons to distant targets.
Despite universal distrust of North Korea, the government of South Korea has at times been hesitant to make clear statements or take significant actions to discourage the North in its continued buildup of nuclear weapons and to dissuade the North from its continued violation of human rights and civil liberties.
U.S. President George W. Bush was disappointed that South Korean leader Kim Dae-jung would not make strong statements against the North’s systematic torture and imprisonment of North Korean citizens. Condoleezza Rice, who was at that time National Security Advisor, and who would later be Secretary of State, describes how changing leadership in South Korea brought the U.S. and South Korea into a closer relationship in terms of how it approached North Korea:
The United States had different interests. North Korea’s nuclear program was a global, not just a regional, issue. Its treatment of its own people offended not just the President personally but also our country’s commitment to human rights. Those dueling perspectives would divide us until the ascent in 2008 of Lee Myung-bak, who placed greater public emphasis on North Korean abuses. But for the moment, there was little common ground on which to move forward.
A decade later, despite the improved harmony between the U.S. and South Korea, the behavior of the Kim dynasty hadn’t gotten any better. In 2011, Kim Jong-un succeeded his father as leader, and vigorously pursued a weapons program which would enable North Korea to directly attack the United States. Nikki Haley, who was U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations from January 2017 to December 2018, writes:
On top of being the world’s worst, most systematic violator of human rights, the North Korean regime posed the number-one security threat to the United States in 2017. North Koreans are taught from childhood to hate and fear the United States. They have long dreamed of uniting the Korean peninsula under North Korea’s control and see the United States as a major obstacle to this. To ensure the dictatorship’s survival, the Kim regime has long pursued nuclear weapons, but under Kim Jong Un the country’s efforts to develop a long-range missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead into U.S. territory accelerated alarmingly.
The problem of North Korea is three-fold: first, it possesses powerful weapons; second, its leadership is mentally ill; third, it starves and abuses its own citizens on an industrial scale. Nikki Haley continues:
Between February and the end of May in 2017, the North Koreans conducted nine illegal ballistic-missile launches. On July 4 — not at all coincidentally on Independence Day — the North Korean regime launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of reaching Alaska. In August, they launched two ICBMs. One flew directly over Japan, threatening the mainland of Japan, as well as American, South Korean, and Japanese bases throughout Asia. In September, they exploded their most powerful nuclear weapon to date, a hydrogen bomb.
North Korea cannot be said to have good relations with any nation, but perhaps its most functional relationship is with China. North Korea is to some extent economically dependent on China. North Korea does far more trade with China than with any other nation.
Other nations in the world look to China occasionally to discourage North Korea’s more belligerent actions. China occasionally does this. Yet China also sees itself, in some ways, as making common cause with North Korea inasmuch as both nations are prime examples of communism in east Asia. Privately, the Chinese leadership must consider the Kim dynasty to be at least erratic and at most insane, yet the Chinese leadership is loath to vigorously criticize a fellow communist regime.
South Korea continues to show courage in the face of the threat from the North. In May 2022, the NATO website posted:
For the first time, in December 2020, the Republic of Korea participated in a NATO Foreign Ministers’ meeting, together with Australia, Finland, Japan, New Zealand, Sweden and the EU HR/VP, to discuss the shift in the global balance of power and the rise of China. This was only one of the latest and more visible political exchanges NATO has had with the Republic of Korea at various levels in recent years. At the NATO Brussels Summit in June 2021, Allies agreed to increase dialogue and practical cooperation between NATO and existing partners in the Asia-Pacific region, including the Republic of Korea.
If nothing else, North Korea has succeeded in creating a substantial amount of international cooperation, as nations who have little else in common are one in their concern about the North’s brutality against its own people and in their concern about the wreckless buildup of atomic weapons.
