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Remarks by the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence
April 17, 2001 John E. McLaughlin
to Texas A&M Conference
"North Korea: Engagement or Confrontation"
(as delivered)
You've given me a tough job tonight. The Conference organizers asked if I would come and discuss the issue of the North Korean threat. In some ways, this is easy. It has after all been a high priority for the Intelligence Community for years, and you have been discussing aspects of it all day long. In another sense, though, it is a challenging assignment, because so many of the factors that defined the classic threat are changing-and changing in a region that is not just very fluid but which also must find its place in a world vastly different from the one that gave birth to the North Korean regime.

What perspective do I bring to this? Like so many of you, I have been to Korea, I have been to the DMZ, and I have had to think about the problem a lot. But to be fair, I would not call myself an expert in the class of so many in this room. The perspective I bring is that of an intelligence officer whose personal career has centered more on assessing change in areas such as the former Soviet Union and Central Europe-areas where totalitarian regimes experienced transformation in dramatically different circumstances. I also bring the perspective of an intelligence officer charged with gauging the relative weight of various challenges and opportunities for US interests across the globe. By any standard, events on the Korean peninsula must rank high on that scale.

The title of your Conference centers on a question: engagement or confrontation? We all know the second very well. Confrontation has been a virtual constant in US relations with North Korea for more than half a century. The far newer phenomenon is engagement-cautious, tentative, guarded, halting-apply the adjective of your choice.

Engagement or confrontation? Ultimately, they describe policy options. It is, of course, not the mission of US Intelligence to prescribe policy, and I would not presume to do so this evening. But, on our best days, we do hope to inform policy.

That said, let me say explicitly that no one should comb through these remarks for clues about the future direction of US policy on Korea. These are personal reflections on one of the most complex and significant issues of our time.

When it comes to North Korea, conditions there clearly hold the potential for both engagement and confrontation. For a state like the North-often reflexively hostile to the outside world, yet in need of it as never before-engagement and the potential for confrontation can coexist-and are likely to co-exist--even in the best of scenarios.

The Nature of the Challenge

What are the elements of the problem? For the United States, North Korea is-first and foremost-a challenge. It was throughout the Cold War, and it is so now. In fact, it could be said that North Korea was a metaphor for some of the most extreme aspects of the Cold War and is today a metaphor for the most challenging aspects of the new world that has come in its wake.

Let's look back for a moment and then talk about how the picture has changed. As you all know, the armistice of July 1953 created on the Korean peninsula a long pattern of tense standoff, punctuated by occasional crisis. For US Intelligence, North Korea became-as much as anything-an order-of-battle problem. Count the troops. Count the tanks. Count the guns. Add up the capabilities. Estimate their intentions. I know I'm making this sound easier and simpler than it was, but my point is that we were dealing with a much less fluid picture back then.

Like everyone else, we knew the regime was brutal within its borders and a menace beyond. Its commando raids into South Korea and its assassination attempts against successive South Korean presidents-including the 1983 bombing in Rangoon that killed 21 people-were clear windows into the minds and morals of North Korean leaders.

And yet, North Korea's status as a client of the Soviet Union and China - a prickly client, to be sure -- did impose constraints on its behavior. With the end of the Cold War and the scaling back of the subsidies that went with it, those constraints began to erode. Today, it may be a fragile regime, but it is one that operates with fewer constraints on its behavior and often outside international norms. And, as I implied earlier, it operates in a world where the reference points-technological, geopolitical, economic, military-are themselves in flux.

In short order, the challenge that North Korea poses to us and our allies has grown in complexity and peril. Its traditional feature-the conventional threat we examined this afternoon-remains in place. And-as we saw in September, 1996 and June, 1999-the North has found it hard to abandon tactics like commando incursions and naval confrontations-even when they fail miserably.

But added into this mix is an increased threat from weapons of mass destruction and the humanitarian challenge we could face, given the increased stress that poverty and economic decline must be creating in the North.

The Conventional Threat...

Let's talk for a minute about the conventional military picture. I reveal no secret when I say that on the battlefield North Korea cannot defeat the South and the United States. But it could inflict tremendous damage in a losing cause.

The North Korean military, like all but the most elite of North Korean society, has suffered the effects of the country's economic implosion. It does not exercise often or well. Its equipment is aging. Its military production is scant. But it is large, and most of it is forward deployed.

Its artillery could rain havoc down on Seoul, a mere 30 miles from the DMZ. It has the biggest pool of special forces in the world-not the best, as we have seen, but with enough punch to sow panic and destruction.

These are capabilities. The intention to use them is a very different matter, and this has been debated thoroughly for years. The case can be made that it would be foolish for the North to use these capabilities. And the case can be made that it would be foolish to make that assumption. But, the bottom line is that like any military commander, we in the intelligence profession can ill-afford to ignore capabilities.

In fact, I can tell you that we tend to make our mistakes not when we convince ourselves that a foreign group or leader might do something, but when we convince ourselves that they will not.

Here is a short passage from one of our intelligence assessments: "...an invasion of South Korea is unlikely unless North Korean forces can develop a clear-cut superiority over the increasingly efficient South Korean army." That judgment came out on the 13 th of January-1950. It had a fairly short shelf life.

No matter what we think the North Korean leadership might do with its military, it is a linchpin of their state. They take it very seriously. And so must we-as the ally of South Korea and its democracy, and as a nation with 37,000 of its own troops serving, working, and living among forty-five million friends in what could one day be harm's way.

That holds true whether we believe the North sees its armed forces as a mark of prestige, a constituency to be satisfied, a tool that might bring respect, or even one that might bring conquest. The military has priority on whatever resources the North has. This is stated policy, the so-called "military first" policy. But it is hardly the whole story.

...and the Unconventional Ones

Were Kim Chong-il and his lieutenants simply sitting atop a large collection of conventional forces, they would still be a grave concern. But it would be one whose destructive power and geographic reach the United States and South Korea have together understood and managed for decades.

As real as the conventional threat may be, North Korea's challenge to regional and global security is magnified by two other factors I've already mentioned.

First, the North's pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles, and its readiness-even eagerness-to become missile salesman to the world. And second, the economic and humanitarian disaster that has afflicted the people of the North-a catastrophe whose effects will endure for generations, no matter how the Korean situation finally plays out.

Weapons of Terror

Looking first at those advanced weapons: as we all know, it was not a brigade of tanks or division of infantry that riveted our attention and concern on the Korean peninsula early in the last decade. It was the nuclear plant at Yongbyon.

The Agreed Framework has frozen activity there. But we still cannot account for all of North Korea's plutonium. And-with an opaque regime in which the practice of denial and deception is embedded in national strategy-we still cannot say for sure that nuclear weapons-related work is not going on somewhere else.

Indeed, the North probably has one or two nuclear bombs-and it may also have biological weapons alongside its chemical ones.

Regarding missiles, the outlines of the North's program are far less mysterious, for the leadership sees the No Dong and Taepo Dong as tools of public diplomacy as well as national defense.

It has so far held to its missile launch moratorium and it has signaled its interest in negotiating a missile deal with us. At the same time, the North's proliferation activities remain robust-for a profit and for a purpose: To keep our attention, to underline their greatest source of leverage, and to remind us of what it is they are willing to haggle over.

North Korea continues to aggressively market its ballistic missiles, equipment, and technology. We find the No Dong and its variants in places like Iran and Pakistan, where they have the potential to alter geopolitical and military calculations in important ways throughout the Middle East and South Asia.

In short, the North has accelerated the pace at which other countries acquire and refine potential delivery systems for weapons of mass destruction.

The flight of a Taepo Dong over Japan more than two years ago added a new and worrisome dimension to the North's own definitions of deterrence and power projection. And it is busy at work on new models that could reach the United States itself with nuclear-sized payloads.

The Humanitarian Challenge

Turning to the second factor I mentioned: even as the North challenges the world in one small but lethal field of modern technology, it presents another challenge as old as life itself: malnutrition and starvation.

A combination of natural calamity and human mismanagement may have claimed up to a million lives in the 1990s. Even today, the North's sputtering economy remains unable to provide remotely sufficient food or work for its people.

Even with the charity of other nations, malnutrition is widespread. Without this charity, famine would be epidemic. Many North Koreans must simply fend for themselves, seemingly forgotten by a system that nonetheless demands their obedience. Some just flee.

As for the others, their dire poverty is captured in a single picture-one that I am sure many of you in this room have seen. It is a satellite photo of the Korean peninsula at night. North China and South Korea are a blaze of lights. North Korea is totally dark outside the single dot that is Pyongyang. The fishing fleets in the Sea of Japan give off far more light than does all of North Korea.

No one who looks at that photograph should forget that there are some 23 million human beings struggling in that darkness.

North Korea's Leadership: Tactical Flexibility...

And what of the small group in that dot of light, the small group that commands North Korea. It was rich ground for analysis this morning.

And we, too, see changes-some encouraging, some not.

No matter what you make of Kim Chong-il's diplomatic opening, it does at least reflect a tactical flexibility. His words and actions are well worth weighing and watching. We have all seen the signposts.

His behavior at the North-South summit. His dispatch of Vice Marshal Cho to Washington and his reception of American diplomats in Pyongyang. His acceptance of foreign aid and foreign aid workers. His efforts to attract foreign money to his investment enclaves. His small adjustments to the domestic economy.

But the key is whether any of these steps signal the start of a process. For in and of themselves, they have yet to bring real improvement to the North. Yet they do suggest the leadership there knows it must do something to better conditions in the country-for its own survival, if nothing else.

Kim's trips to China in January of this year and May of last year are also significant. But so is the fact that China's economic reform was made possible in large part by the passing of Mao and the de-emphasis of major portions of his legacy. In North Korea, we have yet to see any comparable movement away from the legacy of Kim Il-song and all that it represents. Real change will not come until that happens.

...Risky Strategy

So far in Pyongyang, the son has held fast to the father's legacy, including the goal of Northern preeminence in a reunified Korea.

It is easy to caricature Kim Chong-il-either as a simple tyrant blind to his dilemma or as a technocratic champion of sweeping change. But the extreme views of him tend to be the product of bias, ignorance, or wishful thinking. The reality is more complex.

At home, he has shown his hard side-through his purges of the elite, his light regard for the suffering of ordinary Koreans, and the swift destruction of any expression of popular discontent. Abroad, he has shown his pragmatic side-through his willingness to engage old enemies and his skilled brinkmanship as he does so.

Like his father, he has been shrewd enough to make bad behavior the keystone of his foreign policy. He knows that proliferation is something we want to stop. Thus, Kim Chong-il has tried to drum up outside assistance by trading off international concerns about his missile programs and sales. He has-more subtly, of course-done much the same thing with foreign fears of renewed famine and the chaos that could accompany any unraveling of his regime.

These are the wild cards he adds to strengthen what would otherwise be a deuce-high hand. This is his leverage with the world. Along the way, he will seek to exploit any daylight he can find between the United States, South Korea, Japan, the European Union, or anyone else who might be inclined to offer him economic help. And from his perspective, it makes good sense.

Decisive to the success of this strategy is the projection of a credible threat. And here-as we know-the North has its bases covered. But, like any policy founded on threats, it comes with the built-in possibility of accident or miscalculation-by those who conduct it, or by those who react to it.

The Nature of the Regime

Before I can say anything about the future of the North Korean regime-and its challenge-a few words are in order about what makes it tick today.

It is a peculiar creation. The leaden, bureaucratic Marxism we saw falter in the late 20 th Century-with its gray Central Committees and half-forgotten Central European ideology-is an imperfect guide to North Korea and offers few reliable analogies for how the North Korean regime might some day experience transformation.

The transformation of the Central European countries at the beginning of the last decade was eased by at least three things not present in the North Korean equation: extensive exposure to and penetration by the outside world (East Germany is the best example); economies already on the road to privatization (Hungary was the extreme case); and the presence of dissident movements powerful enough in a country like Poland to represent an effective parallel society.

Instead of these cushioning factors, in North Korea, the command economy, central planning, and other familiar features introduced there long ago by the Soviets exist alongside something else. A single story makes the point. A foreign visitor asked a North Korean what he thought of Kim Il-song. "He is God," came the answer. Then a tougher one. "What do you think of Kim Chong-il?" The Korean thought a moment, looked around, and replied: "He is 70 percent God."

Those answers might be very different were the North Korean outside the country. But they do say something about the tone and tenor of the regime on the inside.

Now I'm sure there are subtleties and complexities about the regime that we can neither discern nor appreciate. But that aside, the key is that power continues to reside with Kim Chong-il and the cluster of relatives and allies who run the military, the security forces, and the rest of the state and party apparatus.

No matter how you view them, it is evident they rule a state that is simultaneously impoverished and addicted to living beyond its means. They preach the values of self-reliance, but they rely on foreign aid. The priorities they set and enforce have delivered a huge army, a broken economy, widespread hunger, and a challenge for all of us.

...and Its Future

Because totalitarian elites tend to mask their own policy deliberations and drive opposition underground, the health and stability of their regimes are notoriously difficult for outsiders to gauge. North Korea is no exception. Predictions of its collapse have come and gone, and I will not venture one here now.

But I will say the North faces tough choices. Kim Chong-il probably recognizes the obvious truth that the economic competition with the South is lost. And he has seen for himself the economic gains brought by reform in China.

Yet he also knows the security risks involved and he knows the fates of other leaders who fell victim to change they could not control. He may have seen images of Gorbachev in retirement. Of Honecker in exile. Of a startled Ceausescu on his palace balcony the day the crowd stopped cheering.

At this point, Kim Chong-il may have a toe in the river of change. And he is moving just as we would expect him to: Slowly, carefully, with plenty of room to bargain, maneuver, or pull back.

After a decade of deprivation, the real story may be the durability of the North-a grim testament to the power of a people's ability to endure hardship.

Clearly, the North is under serious stress and it is likely to remain so. But frankly, no one can be confident about when, how, or even whether that stress might achieve critical mass and lead to fracture.

That formulation may not be intellectually satisfying. But I hope you will agree that it is intellectually honest.

The Regional Context

As the situation in the North unfolds, there is a final element of change we must consider: The regional context, which-like so many other things we have talked about today-was reshaped by the close of the Cold War.

Russia and China are each redefining their power, their influence, and their reach, and their relationship with each other. Japan is focused on ending its long economic recession and has heightened security concerns in the aftermath of Pyongyang's missile tests. And South Korea has emerged as a vibrant society with a strong democracy and the world's twelfth largest economy-a stark contrast to the stagnation in North Korea, whose economy barely registers on the charts.

And East Asia as a whole is looking anew at the United States, now the only global superpower. In that capacity, we are still often called on to be partner, protector, or honest broker. But we are also seen as a nation whose interests and priorities do not always coincide with the other major actors in the region.

It is in this fluid environment that the United States must work the problem of North Korea. We find in the immediate neighborhood friends and allies like South Korea and Japan, and others, like Russia and China, whose interests may converge less frequently with ours but who nonetheless share with us a common, significant stake in the ultimate destiny of North Korea. No one will benefit from prolonged instability. There and the cost of reconstruction-whenever the time comes to tally it up-will demand the resources of more than one country.

If we ever face a crisis in the North, its solution will fall to the nations of East Asia and the United States. We will together have the chance to resolve it in concert, not conflict. It is a chance none of us can afford to miss.

Conclusion

Intelligence officers like to say that change typically brings uncertainty, and that uncertainty raises the odds of surprise. With so much change in and around the Korean peninsula, that old truth certainly applies. But none of us should be surprised by the prominence of North Korea as a challenge for policymakers and intelligence analysts.

In a very real sense, it is one of the inevitable issues of American foreign policy. Inevitable because-no matter what level of engagement we may want-the North seems sure to engage us. It could be across a table. It could be with the consequences of its negative behavior or its own instability. Or it could be some combination of them all.

What is clear-as this Conference demonstrates-is the complexity, gravity, and importance of the North Korean issue and its very certain role as a signpost for the future of East Asia.

Thank you very much.

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DDCI Remarks: "North Korea: Engagement or Confrontation"

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Remarks by the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence April 17, 2001 John E. McLaughlin to Texas A&M Conference "North Korea: Engagement or Confrontation" (as delivered) You've given me a tough job tonight. The Conference organizers asked if I would come and discuss the issue of the North Korean threat.

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(Bangkok) - The dynastic strongman of North Korea, Kim Jong-Un, consolidated his rights-abusing rule in 2013, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2014. Over the past year, North Korea has tightened control over the country's northern border to reduce flight, and has continued systematic interrogation and torture of North Koreans caught and forcibly returned from China.

The investigation by a UN Commission of Inquiry on human rights in North Korea should shed light on these and other rights crimes when it presents its report to the UN Human Rights Council this coming March.

"Kim Jong-Un has picked up where his father and grandfather left off, by overseeing a system of public executions, extensive political prison camps, and brutal forced labor," said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "The government now recognizes that the accounts of escaping North Koreans reveal Pyongyang's crimes - so it is doing what it can to stop people from fleeing."

In the 667-page World Report 2014, its 24th edition, Human Rights Watch reviews human rights practices in more than 90 countries. Syria's widespread killings of civilians elicited horror but few steps by world leaders to stop it, Human Rights Watch said. A reinvigorated doctrine of "responsibility to protect" seems to have prevented some mass atrocities in Africa. Majorities in power in Egypt and other countries have suppressed dissent and minority rights. And Edward Snowden's revelations about US surveillance programs reverberated around the globe.

The North Korean government systematically denies basic freedoms in the country and uses detention in labor prison camps to ensure fear of opposing the government. In November, Kim Jong-Un's public purge and execution of his uncle, Jang Song-Thaek, previously a top-level official in the government, reinforced that fear. People are publicly executed on a regular basis for vague national security crimes, including "crimes against the state" and "crimes against the people," as well as a gamut of nonviolent offenses such as fraud and smuggling if the authorities deem the offense as "extremely serious."

The North Korean government continues to practice collective punishment, sending not only an offender but also three generations of his family to political prison camps, known as kwan-li-so. These camps are notorious for horrific living conditions and abuse, including induced starvation, lack of medical care, proper shelter and clothes, torture and abuse by guards, and continuous forced labor in highly dangerous conditions.

Former North Korean security officials told Human Rights Watch that North Koreans who are caught in China are systematically interrogated and tortured, and those found to have had contact with South Koreans faced being sent to a kwan- li-so, while others judged to be a lesser risk are send to penitentiaries ( kyo-hwa-so) or other types of forced labor camps.

Despite having ratified several core UN human rights treaties, North Korea continues to systematically repress core civil and political rights, such as freedom of association, assembly, and expression, and target those involved in religious activities. Labor rights are systematically suppressed and North Korea is one of the few states in the world that has refused to join the International Labor Organization (ILO). Access to adequate food, medical care, education, and other services remains limited, especially for the majority of people who are not in the core "loyal" class under the government's songbun classification system.

"The fiction that Kim Jong-Un might be somehow more moderate because of his education in Switzerland has been thoroughly refuted by the continued brutality of the government he now leads," Robertson said. "Human rights need to be front and center in all international dealings with North Korea, starting with demanding accountability for crimes against humanity."

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North Korea: Kim Jong-Un Deepens Abusive Rule

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(Bangkok) - The dynastic strongman of North Korea, Kim Jong-Un, consolidated his rights-abusing rule in 2013, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2014 . Over the past year, North Korea has tightened control over the country's northern border to reduce flight, and has continued systematic interrogation and torture of North Koreans caught and forcibly returned from China.

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President Trump's speech at the United Nations on Tuesday, in which he threatened to "totally destroy" North Korea, provoked an unprecedented response: On Thursday evening, Kim Jong Un delivered a rare televised statement in which he declared, "I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged US dotard with fire." In the Korean version of the statement, he refers to Trump using a phrase that translates as "old beast lunatic" or "old man lunatic."

Shortly after these comments, North Korea's foreign minister threatened to test a hydrogen bomb in the atmosphere - something that North Korea has never done, and that no country has done in more than 35 years. On Friday morning, Trump responded to the North's twin statements with yet another bellicose tweet: "Kim Jong Un of North Korea, who is obviously a madman who doesn't mind starving or killing his people, will be tested like never before!"

Now, this isn't the first time that Washington and Pyongyang have lobbed insults at each other during the Trump administration - far from it. But North Korea experts say the current round of threats is riskier than previous episodes.

"We've never seen anything like it," Jenny Town, assistant director of Johns Hopkins University's US-Korea Institute, says of Kim's statement. "I would not take this as bluster but would expect action. What action exactly is unclear, but I would expect it to be severe."

The highly unusual nature of the Kim statement, together with the highly specific nature of the atmospheric nuclear test threat, suggests that the country may really be gearing up to do something provocative. And experts say that as long as Trump insists on handling the North with angry rhetoric like his Friday morning tweet, rather than working to calm tensions, the situation is likely to keep escalating. It's gotten to the point where the risk of actual war is, according to the Arms Control Association's Kingston Reif, "unacceptably high."

"The cycle of the threats and counter-threats has entered an even more dangerous phase," Reif explains. "We have two volatile leaders with nuclear weapons making it personal and further digging in with their reckless rhetoric."

What makes this Kim threat different from his previous ones

North Korea makes threats against the US all the time without sparking this kind of reaction from experts. Just a week ago, for example, Pyongyang issued a statement threatening to "annihilate the US imperialist aggressors" and "reduce the US mainland into ashes and darkness," adding that the US should "be beaten to death with a stick fit for a rabid dog."

Yet this statement wasn't greeted with the same level of concern among experts as the North's Thursday night statements.

There are two reasons for that. The first is the source of the comments. Usually, North Korea's threats are issued through official press outlets, like the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) or the Rodong Sinmun newspaper. Kim Jong Un does not personally sign them, and he definitely doesn't read them on state-run TV. The sheer rarity of a personal statement by the country's dictator makes the statement a sign that the North is taking the current situation extremely seriously.

"The fact that it is written as if a personal memo from Kim Jong Un to President Trump is unprecedented and worth pause," Town explains. "It's clear that Kim feels justified in his actions and is insulted at the tone that Trump uses when he speaks of Kim."

Second, experts say the hydrogen bomb test threat is unique and particularly worrying. Typically, North Korea tests its nuclear weapons in an underground bunker at its Punggye-ri facility. Doing so contains the radioactive fallout and limits the risk of accidentally harming anyone. By contrast, detonating a bomb in the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean, as the North Korean foreign minister threatened, could spread fallout far and wide.

In 1963, the US and the Soviet Union agreed to cease atmospheric tests because the fallout couldn't necessarily be contained. The last atmospheric test was conducted by China in 1980. The North conducting one, even far away from populated areas, would be its most serious provocation yet.

"If [Kim Jong Un] did an atmospheric test, that would be a big, big problem," Mira Rapp-Hooper, a scholar at Yale University Law School who studies North Korea, tells me. "[Any] president would feel compelled to respond in some way."

These two problems feed each other. Kim's sense of personal slight could lead him to follow through on the atmospheric test, potentially leading to a response from Trump that brings us even closer to war.

"A personal statement from Kim certainly takes things to a whole new level, and if the North follows through on its apparent threat to test conduct an atmospheric nuclear test, we will be in very dangerous territory," says Laura Rosenberger, the National Security Council director for Korea and China in the Obama administration.

"This is not a game, and these are not just words," she adds.

The Trump administration could stop this. Will they?

None of this means that war is likely in the near future. Kim may very well not follow through on his threat to test a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific, and if he does, the American military and political response might well be more restrained than experts fear.

But the fact that we're even worrying about this suggests that the Trump administration's emerging strategy to deal with North Korea - fiery rhetoric coupled with a push for harsher economic sanctions - isn't working very well.

The consensus among North Korea experts is that Pyongyang wants nuclear weapons to deter an American invasion. Threats, like Trump's vow back in August to respond to North Korean threats against the US with "fire and fury like the world has never seen," only cause it to feel more insecure. When it feels insecure, it lashes out - demonstrating its own strength in order to signal to Washington that an invasion would be far too costly.

The two sides are essentially caught in a cycle of escalation that could theoretically escalate into outright conflict - even though neither side actually wants a war.

The current situation "is a continuation of the one that started with the 'fire and fury comments,'" Jeffrey Lewis, an expert on North Korea at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, tells me.

The threat to test a bomb over the Pacific, specifically, is an example of this cycle in action. It's the clearest way yet for the North to signal its own strength.

The test "never would have been a consideration for [the North Korean] regime if Trump administration hadn't embarked on a policy of continuous rhetorical escalation," Barry Pavel, a defense expert at the Atlantic Council, tweeted.

The solution to all of this, the experts say, is very simple: The Trump administration needs to stop unnecessarily antagonizing North Korea and instead start coming up with a strategy for managing the threat it poses.

"It is still a crisis of our own making," Lewis says. "We can stop it any time by shutting the president up and working to deescalate the situation."

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Why North Korea's latest threats are far more serious than its typical bluster

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President Trump's speech at the United Nations on Tuesday, in which he threatened to "totally destroy" North Korea, provoked an unprecedented response: On Thursday evening, Kim Jong Un delivered a rare televised statement in which he declared, "I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged US dotard with fire."

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In just three years, the war claimed the lives of millions of people and forever changed the Korean Peninsula.

"We went over there and fought the war and eventually burned down every town in North Korea anyway, some way or another, and some in South Korea, too," said former US Air Force commander Gen. Curtis LeMay in 1988, during an interview for an Air Force military history volume.

By the time the armistice was signed on July 27, 1953, North Korea -- which began the war with a population of 9.6 million -- had suffered an estimated 1.3 million civilian and military casualties, according to figures cited by the US Air Force. South Korea, meanwhile, suffered up to 3 million civilian and 225,000 military casualties, from a total population of around 20.2 million in 1950.

Gen. Douglas MacArthur, a legendary figure in the US military who went on to become the commander-in-chief of the United Nations Command at the onset of the war, said during a congressional hearing in 1951 that he had never seen such devastation.

"I shrink with horror that I cannot express in words -- at this continuous slaughter of men in Korea," MacArthur said. "I have seen, I guess, as much blood and disaster as any living man, and it just curdled my stomach, the last time I was there."

The war was one that many were reluctant to join, coming as it did just five years after the end of World War II.

More than 33,000 Americans were killed in the fighting and 600,000 from the Chinese military -- who joined to protect their fellow communist neighbors -- were left dead or missing.

The Chinese and the Americans went home after the fighting, but North Koreans stayed amid the ruins of the battle -- their entire infrastructure decimated, their towns and cities completely obliterated.

Though the armistice date holds some significance in the United States -- the US will start the process of banning Americans from travel to North Korea Thursday -- the legacy of destruction was and remains a key piece of propaganda for Kim Il Sung, his son Kim Jong Il and his grandson Kim Jong Un, who now rules the country.

The 'original sin'

For North Koreans, destruction came from above. The conflict is seen as the first large-scale air campaign conducted by the US Air Force.

American planes dropped approximately 635,000 tons of explosives on North Korea (that's more in three years than during the entire Pacific theater of World War II), including 32,000 tons of napalm, according to historian Charles Armstrong.

That continued fear of deadly US military airstrikes helps the North Korean government to portray Americans as a far-away caricature, a faceless enemy that leveled their country and could do so again.

"The bombing is treated as the American original sin in the (North Korean) propaganda and it certainly was savage," according to Robert E. Kelly, a professor of political science at South Korea's Pusan National University. "It's become a political tool to justify the permanent emergency state. Japanese colonization is used the same."

A 'Sea of Blood'

Most historians say the war started when the eldest Kim invaded the south, but North Korea teaches its citizens the United States started the war -- and only the Kim family can protect them.

The North Korean state attempts to engender a visceral hatred for the United States. Kindergarteners draw anti-American martial images. The news media releases videos of the US military in flames. The June 25 anniversary of the start of the Korean War is "the day of struggle against US imperialism."

The man who led them through war, Kim Il Sung, is revered as a god in North Korea and credited with countless accomplishments: most notably inventing the country's guiding ideology, juche -- which means self-reliance -- and liberating the Korean Peninsula from Japanese occupation.

Works of poetry and art are also attributed to him -- and lionized by North Koreans.

An example of this is the play, "The Sea of Blood." Considered among the country's most important cultural works, it tells the story of a poor farmer who joins the fight against the Japanese occupation. He is killed, but his wife, who joins the communist resistance, goes on to help defeat the Japanese.

The play -- which is quite violent and carries strong ethnocentric undertones, North Korea analysts say -- is a key juche text, due to its courageous, independent and patriotic protagonist.

The juche ideology has been hammered into the North Korean psyche since Kim first introduced it during the 1950s. Works of propaganda like "Sea of Blood" -- and the fact that it's nearly impossible for those inside the country to get information from the outside world -- help reinforce the underdog, survivor mentality that is at the heart of the juche idea.

Nuclear weapons

That survivor mentality extends into government, too. The country's constitution states that "national defense is the supreme duty and honor of citizens," and the country is governed by the "songun" -- or military-first -- policy, which places the armed forces above all else.

When it comes to North Korea's nuclear and missile programs, the Kim regime looks at leaders like Libya's Moammar Gadhafi -- who gave up his pursuit of nuclear weapons for security guarantees and sanctions relief but was eventually ousted and killed -- and believes those weapons are the key to regime survival.

So the country spends an incredibly high percentage of its budget on defense, and tells its people that the expenditures are crucial to preventing a US invasion.

With the country's apparent successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile earlier this month, they may be getting close to that goal.

"Now that the DPRK's (the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, North Korea's official name) capability to strike the very heart of the US at any given time has been physically proved, the US would find it more difficult to dare attack the DPRK," the North Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement shortly after the missile launch.

"This is the only way to defend oneself and safeguard the dignity of the nation in the present hostile world where the law of the jungle prevails."

CNN's James Griffiths contributed to this report

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why north korea still hates the united states: the korean war - cnn

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Why North Korea still hates the United States

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In just three years, the war claimed the lives of millions of people and forever changed the Korean Peninsula. "We went over there and fought the war and eventually burned down every town in North Korea anyway, some way or another, and some in South Korea, too," said former US Air Force commander Gen.

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Sovereignty, in political theory, the ultimate overseer, or authority, in the decision-making process of the state and in the maintenance of order. The concept of sovereignty-one of the most controversial ideas in political science and international law-is closely related to the difficult concepts of state and government and of independence and democracy. Derived from the Latin term superanus through the French term souveraineté, sovereignty was originally meant to be the equivalent of supreme power. However, in practice it often has departed from this traditional meaning.

political system: Types of classification schemes

...of princely and republican rule. Sovereignty in the monarchy or the principality is in the hands of a single ruler; in republics, sovereignty is vested in a plurality or collectivity of power holders. Reducing aristocracy and democracy to the single category of republican rule, Machiavelli also laid the basis in...
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History

In 16th-century France Jean Bodin (1530-96) used the new concept of sovereignty to bolster the power of the French king over the rebellious feudal lords, facilitating the transition from feudalism to nationalism. The thinker who did the most to provide the term with its modern meaning was the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), who argued that in every true state some person or body of persons must have the ultimate and absolute authority to declare the law; to divide this authority, he held, was essentially to destroy the unity of the state. The theories of the English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) at the end of the 17th century and the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78) in the 18th century-that the state is based upon a formal or informal compact of its citizens, a social contract through which they entrust such powers to a government as may be necessary for common protection-led to the development of the doctrine of popular sovereignty that found expression in the American Declaration of Independence in 1776. Another twist was given to this concept by the statement in the French constitution of 1791 that "Sovereignty is one, indivisible, unalienable and imprescriptible; it belongs to the Nation; no group can attribute sovereignty to itself nor can an individual arrogate it to himself." Thus, the idea of popular sovereignty exercised primarily by the people became combined with the idea of national sovereignty exercised not by an unorganized people in the state of nature, but by a nation embodied in an organized state. In the 19th century the English jurist John Austin (1790-1859) developed the concept further by investigating who exercises sovereignty in the name of the people or of the state; he concluded that sovereignty is vested in a nation's parliament. A parliament, he argued, is a supreme organ that enacts laws binding upon everybody else but that is not itself bound by the laws and could change these laws at will. This description, however, fitted only a particular system of government, such as the one that prevailed in Great Britain during the 19th century.

Austin's notion of legislative sovereignty did not entirely fit the American situation. The Constitution of the United States, the fundamental law of the federal union, did not endow the national legislature with supreme power but imposed important restrictions upon it. A further complication was added when the Supreme Court of the United States asserted successfully in Marbury v. Madison (1803) its right to declare laws unconstitutional through a procedure called judicial review. Although this development did not lead to judicial sovereignty, it seemed to vest the sovereign power in the fundamental document itself, the Constitution. This system of constitutional sovereignty was made more complex by the fact that the authority to propose changes in the Constitution and to approve them was vested not only in Congress but also in states and in special conventions called for that purpose. Thus, it could be argued that sovereignty continued to reside in the states or in the people, who retained all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution or expressly prohibited by it under the terms of the Constitution's Tenth Amendment. Consequently, the claims by advocates of states' rights that states continued to be sovereign were bolstered by the difficulty of finding a sole repository of sovereignty in a complex federal structure; and the concept of dual sovereignty of both the union and the component units found a theoretical basis. Even if the competing theory of popular sovereignty-the theory that vested sovereignty in the people of the United States-was accepted, it still might be argued that this sovereignty need not be exercised on behalf of the people solely by the national government but could be divided on a functional basis between the federal and state authorities.

Another assault from within on the doctrine of state sovereignty was made in the 20th century by those political scientists (e.g., Léon Duguit, Hugo Krabbe, and Harold J. Laski) who developed the theory of pluralistic sovereignty ( pluralism) exercised by various political, economic, social, and religious groups that dominate the government of each state. According to this doctrine, sovereignty in each society does not reside in any particular place but shifts constantly from one group (or alliance of groups) to another. The pluralistic theory further contended that the state is but one of many examples of social solidarity and possesses no special authority in comparison to other components of society.

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Sovereignty and international law

Although the doctrine of sovereignty has had an important impact on developments within states, its greatest influence has been in the relations between states. The difficulties here can be traced to Bodin's statement in 1576 that the sovereign who makes the laws cannot be bound by the laws he makes ( majestas est summa in cives ac subditos legibusque soluta potestas). This statement has often been interpreted as meaning that a sovereign is not responsible to anybody and is not bound by any laws. However, a closer reading of Bodin's writings does not support this interpretation. He emphasized that even with respect to his own citizens a sovereign is bound to observe certain basic rules derived from the divine law, the law of nature or reason, and the law that is common to all nations ( jus gentium), as well as the fundamental laws of the state that determine who is the sovereign, who succeeds to sovereignty, and what limits the sovereign power. Thus, Bodin's sovereign was restricted by the constitutional law of the state and by the higher law that was considered as binding upon every human being. In fact, Bodin discussed as binding upon states many of those rules that were later woven into the fabric of international law. Nevertheless, his theories have been used as justifying absolutism in the internal political order and anarchy in the international sphere.

This interpretation was developed to its logical conclusion by Hobbes in Leviathan (1651), in which the sovereign was identified with might rather than law. Law is what the sovereign commands, and it cannot limit his power; sovereign power is absolute. In the international sphere this condition led to a perpetual state of war, one sovereign trying to impose his will by force on all other sovereigns. This situation has changed little over time, with sovereign states continuing to claim the right to be judges in their own controversies, to enforce by war their own conception of their rights, to treat their own citizens in any way that suits them, and to regulate their economic life with complete disregard for possible repercussions in other states.

During the 20th century important restrictions on the freedom of action of states began to appear. The Hague conventions of 1899 and 1907 established detailed rules governing the conduct of wars on land and at sea. The Covenant of the League of Nations, the forerunner of the United Nations (UN), restricted the right to wage war, and the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 condemned recourse to war for the solution of international controversies and its use as an instrument of national policy. They were followed by the Charter of the United Nations (Article 2), which imposed the duty on member states to "settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered" and supplemented it with the injunction that all members "shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force." However, the Charter listed as one of the basic principles of the UN "the principle of sovereign equality of all its Members."

In consequence of such developments, sovereignty ceased to be considered as synonymous with unrestricted power. States have accepted a considerable body of law limiting their sovereign right to act as they please. Those restrictions on sovereignty are usually explained as deriving from consent or autolimitation, but it can easily be demonstrated that in some cases states have been considered as bound by certain rules of international law despite the lack of satisfactory proof that these rules were expressly or implicitly accepted by them. Conversely, new rules cannot ordinarily be imposed upon a state, without its consent, by the will of other states. In this way a balance has been achieved between the needs of the international society and the desire of states to protect their sovereignty to the maximum possible extent.

Nonsovereign states

The 19th-century distinction between fully sovereign states and several categories of less sovereign units lost its importance under the law of the UN. Emphasis was placed not on legal differences among colonies, protected states, protectorates, and states under the suzerainty of another state but on the practical distinction between self-governing and non-self-governing territories. Under the UN Charter, non-self-governing territories became "a sacred trust," and the states administering them promised to develop them toward self-government. Some of these territories were placed under the UN Trusteeship Council, which resulted in a closer supervision of their administration by the UN and in their speedier progress toward self-government or independence. Once a territory achieved self-government, as defined in resolutions of the General Assembly, supervision by the UN ceased, even though independent status was not reached.

Divided sovereignty

The concept of absolute, unlimited sovereignty did not last long after its adoption, either domestically or internationally. The growth of democracy imposed important limitations upon the power of the sovereign and of the ruling classes. The increase in the interdependence of states restricted the principle that might is right in international affairs. Citizens and policymakers generally have recognized that there can be no peace without law and that there can be no law without some limitations on sovereignty. They started, therefore, to pool their sovereignties to the extent needed to maintain peace and prosperity (e.g., the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the World Trade Organization, and the European Union), and sovereignty is being increasingly exercised on behalf of the peoples of the world not only by national governments but also by regional and international organizations. Thus, the theory of divided sovereignty, first developed in federal states, has begun to be applicable in the international sphere.

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Sovereignty, in political theory, the ultimate overseer, or authority, in the decision-making process of the state and in the maintenance of order. The concept of sovereignty-one of the most controversial ideas in political science and international law-is closely related to the difficult concepts of state and government and of independence and democracy.

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North Korea: 8 Things to Know Before You Go!

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Forget any independent travel in North Korea, you'll be on an authorised tour. Anything else is espionage. Learn more →

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On April 28, North Korea launched a new missile test that furthers its nuclear weapons program. When opposing this activity the U.S. has been called hypocritical. The U.S. has nuclear weapons, goes the argument, so why should the U.S. deny nuclear weapons to North Korea (or Iran for that matter), which are sovereign states and therefore have the right to self-defense? Or, how could anyone argue that Japan and South Korea should have nuclear weapons, but North Korea should not?

The reason for the distinction, which some might see as hypocrisy, is rarely discussed by diplomats publicly. But I believe the distinction underlies our strong opposition to North Korean nuclear weapons - North Korea is an autocracy that violates human rights and international law and therefore cannot be trusted with this most destructive of weapons. Were Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, or Ukraine to obtain nuclear weapons for their defense against China and Russia, which I think they should do, they would not experience sanctions or violent threats as do North Korea and Iran. They might get a slap on the diplomatic wrist, and nothing more. This is not hypocrisy, but rather based on the core values exhibited by contemporary democracies, and their legitimate authority stemming from 17th-century philosophies of democratic sovereignty.

Let us compare the extreme cases - North Korea versus the U.S., U.K, and France. The latter three countries are mature democracies that have shown strong support for core international values like democracy, human rights, environmental sustainability and international law. They are not perfect, to which U.S. waterboarding at Guantánamo prison, rollbacks of the Environmental Protection Agency, and mining of Nicaragua's harbor in the 1980s attest. But they are generally much better on human rights, international law, and environmental sustainability than is North Korea.

Because of this adherence to core values, global public opinion trusts these countries to have nuclear weapons, and to use them in a defensive manner that allows them to further these values globally, knowing that their nuclear capability deters retaliation. Countries with core values but without a nuclear deterrent, such as South Korea or Japan, have to be more circumspect in their advocacy of values when addressing aggressive countries like Russia, China, and North Korea. This is one reason why China and Russia are against Japan and South Korea obtaining nuclear weapons.

While Japan and South Korea's sovereignty resides in their citizens, democratic deliberation and rights and responsibilities as established by law, North Korea's sovereignty inheres in just one man - he is neither mature, nor does he support democracy, human rights, international law, and environmental sustainability. It is therefore far more dangerous for nuclear weapons to be in the hands of Kim Jong Un than in the hands of a democracy. His lack of respect for these core values makes him more liable to use those weapons in a way that grossly violates them. While the U.N. recognizes Kim Jong Un's North Korea as "sovereign", it is a sovereignty that has proved capricious and led to the violation of human rights. It is therefore a questionable sort of sovereignty that in my view deserves less consideration, if any, when compared to the mature and stable democratic sovereignty that is found in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

North Korea's sovereignty is closer to that envisioned by philosopher Thomas Hobbes, which is an autocratic sovereignty only justified by an anarchic state of nature in which life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." But that Hobbesian state of nature no longer exists in most countries, and so can no longer be used to justify autocratic rule. Indeed, the closest thing to Hobbes' brutish state of nature is now the autocratic rule in North Korea itself.

The democratic world has long left Hobbes' brutish state of nature behind. Democratic states are now based on a democratic notion of sovereignty envisioned by philosopher John Locke in the 17th century. Democratic sovereignty is only granted through the consent of the governed. There must be a representative body like a legislature. Democratic sovereignty must be wielded for the benefit of the governed. This is an approach to sovereignty that privileges democracy and human rights (rule of the people, for the people) over autocracies that violate human rights (rule of one person, to the detriment of others).

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Why North Korea Cannot Have Nuclear Weapons, But Japan And South Korea Should

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The U.S., Japan and South Korea support democracy, human rights, international law, and environmental sustainability. North Korea violates these core values so cannot be trusted with nuclear weapons. Their destructive power means only states that respect core values should have them.

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5) Opinion on whether they should be allowed sovereignty. (2 paragraphs)

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5) Opinion on whether they should be allowed sovereignty. (2 paragraphs)

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North Korea should not be allowed sovereignty. It is a state of great danger amongst it's counterparts if it has any (unknown). The country is essentially unstable and under corrupt rule in my opinion. The people have no voice and disobedience to any rule can deem extreme punishment. Instead of viewing its citizens as a priority they are all viewed as minorities. In any case of civil war or malfunction in the country. I believe that there must be an intervening higher power to draw distinctions and bring to pass a fair and safe outcome. Without injustice and chaos. It simply seems that North Korea is not capable of keeping order amongst its people, all the while their rights are preserved as humans because they just don't have any as it is now. Recent events that have transpired have allowed the world (not only the U.S.) to draw the conclusion that North Korea can hurt others. It is evident that they have acquired more advanced weaponry and that they seem to want to be able to use because of all their tests. This shows us that their increased concentration on weapons of war make them an unsafe country in order to allow them sovereignty. They draw danger to their people, their own land, and especially to their enemies ( the U.S.).

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1) Describe the internal conditions of North Korea.

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1) Describe the internal conditions of North Korea.

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The Internal conditions of North Korea are wretched. Where the people are the least free compared to any other country run by government.
The economy has run on forced labor to fund what the government deems important. Such as the military.
Enclosed in its bubble, it is hard to tell what goes on in the country and for the people inside  what goes on in the world.
Its population is roughly a little more than 25 million using the 2016 estimation. Not much different from the 2008 census.
It's GDP is 12.38 billion USD.
The country is run under a totalitarian dictatorship with one supreme leader who is chosen through birth right. The people have no choice or voice.
It's main exports are minerals and products such as coal and copper. But also some fishery and agriculture. Main export partner is China.
Although "social education" is for the most part run by the government. 11 years of preliminary standard schooling is payed by the government.
Besides its corrupt schemes and other antics which are seen in North Korea government it is hard to tell the accurate wealth of the nation. It has debt just like any other but may see a recent rise because of the amount of money spent on the military and other such related resources.

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2) Description of the tactics used by the government to enforce laws.

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2) Description of the tactics used by the government to enforce laws.

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The government in North Korea works in fear. It gives its people no other option but to follow their rule. With much propaganda and strict punishment to disobedience. Its people are forced to follow their Law.  The North Korean government continues to practice collective punishment, sending not only an offender but also three generations of his family to political prison camps. This is an example of they enforce their laws. By drawing fear to the last brach in the family tree.

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The U.S. and North Korea have nothing less than a sour relationship because of things that transpired in either nations history. The Korean War was a distinguishing factor, when the north and south fought (the north directed by the soviets and the south by the U.S.). The war was said said to have started by either side as said in either nation.  The war has technically never ended in that no peace treaty has ever been signed. Recent test of ballistic missiles and other weaponry close to the U.S. have also drawn anger amongst either nation.

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4) What weapons do they have/what have they tried? What threats have they made?

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4) What weapons do they have/what have they tried? What threats have they made?

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North Korea have weapons that range from ballistic missiles to ICBM's that could potentially be able to reach U.S. soil. They even have nuclear defense systems and nuclear weapons of their own. Since 2011 they have carried out 98 ballistic missile tests. North Korea also has its range of cyber attackers at its disposal. These "hackers" succeeded in hacking Sony pictures and caused a great detriment to the company. Recent threats from North Korea to the U.S. are unlike those of before. North Korea is constantly sending threats to the U.S. through their own media outlets. But not until recently has their leader personally read a threat on state run t.v. and signed it personally.