North Korea Research Paper

Nuclear Issues in North Korea

On Oct 9th, 2006, The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, also known as North Korea, successfully conducted an underground nuclear test. According to a report by Jeff Bliss, “On Oct 16th, US confirmed that radioactivity found in air samples has verified North Korea's claims that it conducted an underground nuclear test on Oct. 9, according to the top U.S. intelligence agency”(Jeff Bliss, 2006). So, why North Korea wants to have nuclear power so bad? And why it was disapproved and rejected by US and the rest of the world? In this paper, I am going to answer those questions by discussing the history of this event, the motivation of North Korea government and the afterward reaction of the world towards North
The North Korea believed in communism and was supported by People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union, whereas the south which interested in western democratic political system was supported by USA. As a result, the tension between those two Koreans is getting tougher and tougher. The war between two countries is never actually ended, but two countries both have an ambition of reunifying Korea. At the end of World War II, Japan surrendered after USA dropped two atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The degree of destruction that the atomic bombs can produce shocked the rest of the world. From that point, USA became the most powerful country in the world. The rest of the world realized the power of nuclear weapon and got into a competition with each other. After some 20 years, Soviet Union, UK, France and China invented their own atomic bombs respectively. Out of all the competitions, the cold war between US and the Soviet Union, which is also the competition between the communism and the democrat, is the most noticeable one. The two superpowers compete not only for technologies, but also for the numbers of atomic bombs built. According to the list of states with nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union used to have 16,000 warheads in possession, and the US had 9938 warheads (wikipedia). Scientists estimate that if two superpowers start to fight with each
As we know, DPRK is the one of the few countries in the world that has a dictatorship communist government. All decisions that government make does not reflect their civilian’s opinion. After the Korean War, two big communist powers- People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union supported helped North Korea by providing protections, technologies and foods. However, at the end of 1989, Soviet control of communist governments throughout Europe begins to weaken and the Cold War comes to a close. As the USSR's power declines, North Korea loses the security guarantees and economic support that had sustained it for 45 years (wikipedia, time line of North Korea nuclear program). Without the support from USSR, North Korea is in deep trouble. Because it does not really have the technologies, fuels and goods supplies that it needed in order to run a country. Plus the fact that communist and democrat are two opposite confrontational parties, so it has to figure out a way to get through this situation. As a result, they aimed on the development of nuclear energy. This is a solution that will kill two birds with one stone. On one side, they claim that their purpose of developing nuclear power is only to trade for food and fuel. On the other side, they can use nuclear weapon to deter US and his allies from invading. But US tells a totally different story. In 2002, US President George W Bush named North Korea as part of