NORTH KOREA is and will remain a threat to the United States and our friends and allies as long as it retains nuclear weapons, which likely means as long as it exists. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has an unequalled record of breaking its commitments and proliferating dangerous technologies to other rogue states. Recent events simply confirm a sixty-year-long reality in Pyongyang.
Unhindered by press reports of Kim Jong Il suffering a stroke, or speculation about regime crisis, the DPRK’s efforts to sustain its nuclear-weapons and ballistic-missile programs continue in plain view. First, North Korea suspended “disabling” the Yongbyon nuclear facility and threatened to reverse the process entirely to protest not being removed from the United States’ list of state sponsors of terrorism. This ploy is yet another example of the North’s consistently successful negotiating tactic of selling the same concessions again and again for higher and higher prices. Even advocates of the vaunted six-party talks now worry that the State Department’s shamelessly submissive approach is harming U.S. interests.
