Six-party talks over North Korea's nuclear weapons program are set to resume this Thursday on the heels of failed talks in December and Kim Jong-il's provocative nuclear test in October. TNI takes a look back at other crucial junctures in America's dealings with the DPRK.
In 2003, TNI contributing editor Ted Galen Carpenter argued against pre-emptive action against North Korea, writing that America could contain and co-exist with a nuclear North Korea:
"There is a pervasive desire in the United States and throughout East Asia to prevent North Korea from becoming a nuclear-armed power, for the prospect of Kim Jong-il's bizarre and unpredictable regime having such a capability is profoundly disturbing. Two factions have emerged in the United States about how to deal with the crisis, and they embrace sharply different strategies. Yet they share an important underlying assumption: that North Korea is using its nuclear program merely as a negotiating ploy, and that Pyongyang can eventually be induced to give up that program.
