NEWS: North Korea Claims It has the Bomb

Kesu said:
I have always been one who looks at things from North Korea's perspective to get a better understanding of things. Some say that's just apologizing for North Korea, but that's taking the easy way out. Simply writing off Kim Jong Il as crazy and insane is also taking the easy way out.

I noticed it wasn't posted in this newswire a few days ago when South Korea removed the term "enemy" from it's relationship with North Korea. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4235701.stm) And South Korea has known for a long time that North Korea has nukes. Even without nukes, North Korea's million-plus military is able to destroy Seoul. Why aren't the South Koreans as freaked out as a handful of right wing Americans?

Kim Jong Il is not crazy. He may be brutal, but he's not unpredictable in foreign relations. Since he took power, and since he lost the military backing of the communist bloc, he has not attacked any other country. And he won't attack any other country, with nukes or without nukes, because he knows that his fragile regime will be wiped out instantly since he has no one to back him up.

All of this nuclear posturing and previous muscle flexing (the launching of missiles over Japan) occurs because North Korea has no other cards in its hands. It wants to be treated as an equal player in international politics (it may not deserve to be treated equal, but that's beside the point.) It knows that its a small, fragile country surrounded by hostile neighbours, but it still wants to be respected, and the only way it can get any of that is by making itself a military equal to its neighbours. And on top of that, it's not willing to overthrow its state ideology.

Another more practical part of this is since Bush attacked Afghanistan and Iraq, North Korea now feels more than ever that its very existance is at risk. The US is surely more of a threat to North Korea than vice versa. And from a North Korean perspective, the US is pretty unpredictable militarily. Not many other countries invade countries unilaterally for phony reasons.

It's not so complicated. And that's why people who look carefully at North Korea, especially South Koreans who are forced to deal with this issue every day, can see that North Korea isn't a grave threat to civilization/