Tuesday, September 21, 2004

Childish

Found an artice here about North Korea making comments how South Korea is also making weapons so they don't understand why the US has a "hostile" policy toward them and not South Korea. So they use this excuse to not to come to any peace talks. Very childish way NK is handling the situation.

1 comment:

Phil Blumberg said...

I agree that North Korea seems to be exaggerating South Korea's nuclear weapons program and that it is using this to stall negoiations. However, the point the comment makes is valid, no matter what the intentions behind it were. The U.S. does have a "double-standard." How can we make a valid argument for the cessation of DPRK's nuclear weapons program while we sit on the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. If nuclear weapons are such awful and unneccessary weapons, why is it necessary for us to have them? Some would argue because others have them and that we need them for deterrence. I don't believe any of the superpowers who currently have nuclear weapons would intentionally use them against us. The real threat of nuclear weapons come when they are aquired by terrorists, and to terrorists, our nuclear arsenal isn't a deterent. We can act as an example by taking steps to actively dismantle our nuclear arsenal and this will cause other countries, like Russia, to dismantle their arsenals more quickly which will limit the availibility of nuclear weapons to terrorists.
I think that there will be less incentive for developing countries to try and develop nuclear weapons if we take steps to dismantle our own arsenal. If it is universally and unequivocally unacceptable to possess nuclear weapons, there will be even more pressure on countries like North Korea to cease their weapons programs. I think our argument will carry more weight if we take the first step.