MW 2:15 CLASS

Unit III: New York Times Megazine

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Is North Korea a Threat to the World?

By. Inae Lee

Recently, the UN has voted to toughen the sanctions towards North Korea, who has been testing nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles. This issue may not be the most ‘hot issue’ for people from other countries, but as a South Korean, it was a pretty important news.

Although, North Korea is the neighboring country and used to be the same nation, South Korea is being threatened and attacked by North Korea. Soldiers who stands near the peninsula always have to be in between tensions, because there have been frequent attacks including shooting a missile on to a near island or attacking the military base and one of threats almost led into a war.

Because US is too far for North Korea to attack or may be was not an easy target for them, US has not experienced any physical attack such as missile or a bomb from North Korea, yet, they have threatened US many times with words.

Threatening other countries could be just seen as them trying to do their ‘communist’ thing, but since few years ago, their threat does not seem as simple as it was before.

When South Korea and US thought North Korea’s claim in owning and developing a nuclear bomb was a ‘bluffing’, witnessing their practice in nuclear bombing has alarmed us. Also, the fact that “North Korea, which had always referred to its nuclear weapons as a deterrent, has increasingly talked about a preemptive strike” is one of the reasons why US and other countries have to take their threat seriously.

Considering the numbers of North Korea’s threats are increasing and  getting more aggressive, it is becoming beyond the problem just between the North and South Korea. I should start by telling how and why North Korea has become every country’s problem.

North Korea has created after the Korean War ‘ended’ in 1953. The Korean War was a fight between the communist and the democrat. The communist, China and Russia had the Northern part of Korea and the democrat; US had the Southern part of Korea. While the war has been going on for three years and when it still did not seem to end, they decided to pause the war by dividing the Korea into two, north and south. While right after the division, North was more developed than the South, but when south started to grow rapidly and won over North Korea’s economy so easily, north felt threatened. This is when North started in trying to prove their power by using violence and threats. Their action seems like a child of a family who tries to get mom’s attention by getting into troubles.

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Despite of North Korea’s negative behaviors, because South wants to reach out hands to North for a union, South have provided them grains, money and other resources. However, instead of giving out the resources to their citizens, the government has sold them and used the money to invest on their nuclear project and producing other weapons.

The big question many people are most interest in is “Is North Korea really a threat to us (the world)?” The possible answer is they could become one if we do not take them seriously. Even though they seem isolated from the world and not that strong, they have been trying their best to develop on their military. The government does not spend their money on their people, which they should considering in their enormous gap between the rich and the poor. Instead, they used their money on investing their weapons.

With their effort, they actually have made some powerful weapons including nuclear weapons and missiles. As a result, North Korea’s military has become “the fifth-largest military in the world, trailing only China, the US, Russia and India. It is well trained, disciplined and motivated.” This is a very surprising and unusual statistic that could come from a country with just 1% of GDP growth rate.

People say they would not use those weapons easily, because it is also suicidal for them. The spokesman, George Little has added “North Korea will achieve nothing by threats or provocations which will only further isolate North Korea.” However, looking back at their unpredictable actions, we cannot just sit and watch them making more weapons.

In order to get an idea of how much aggressive their threats are becoming, we have to compare threats they have done so far.

  • April 15, 1969: North Korea downs a U.S. Navy EC-121 spy plane, killing 31 Americans
  • October 9, 1983: North Korean agents try to assassinate South Korean President.
  • January 2002: President Bush includes North Korea in the “axis of evil” in his State of the Union address.
  • October 2002: North Korea admits it has carried out a secret nuclear weapons development program.

In the early 20’s, US only had to get involved with North Korea in protecting South Korea from all the threats. However, in the late 20’s, when the Kim Jong-un has became the new leader, after his father’s death, was when the actual troubles began.(https://www.rt.com/news/north-korea-threats-timeline-108/)

  • December 2011: Kim Jong-il died and his son Kim Jong-un was named his successor.
  • August 2012: North Korea announced to had developed ballistic missiles capable of reaching the US mainland.
  • February 2013: They conducted its third nuclear test and threated to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike against South Korea and the US.
  • December 2014: North Korea lambasts US over ‘The Interview’, says Obama is the ‘culprit’.
  • March 2016: North Korea launches an undersea missile after the harshest sanction from the UN

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As seem from the timeline, the level of aggressiveness and the number of threats have dramatically increased since last few years. Also, their method of threats has broadened its spectrum by hacking into other’s system, such as SONY entertainment due to the movie “The interview” . This is why the sanctions on North Korea is getting harsher.

The first sanction started in 2006, to prohibit North Korea from “conducting future nuclear tests or launching a ballistic missile”. UNSCR banned a range of imports and exports to North Korean. Next sanctions became harsher such as completely banning all imports and exports of weapons, new financial sanctions targeted blocking the access of the Kim regime to bulk cash transfers. Then, the harshest sanction has declared in 2016, which included the financial sanctions, freezing economic resources located outside North Korea owned.
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The reason why sanctions on North Korea is getting harsher is because sanction did not seem to work on stopping North Korea from practicing nuclear tests and launching missiles to other countries. Now, declaring sanctions on North Korea even started to  seem pointless after seeing how ignorant they are about the sanctions and doing whatever they please.

For the most recent example, North Korea has launched an under-sea missile right after UN has declared the harshest sanction on them. Taking away North Korea’s advantage every time they have done a threatening action does not seem like the most effective way to stop them. I think the most problem about the way UN declares its sanction is the absence of North Korea at the UN sanction conference. Instead of just making more restrictions and report them to North Korea, make the representative of North Korea to be present at the UN sanction conference and make sure they understand them and the consequences.

Since the North Korea is getting stronger and their threat will get more aggressive along the way, not only US and South Korea, but also UN, meaning other countries, has to take some more time on how to solve the relationship between North Korea and the world. Enforcing and limiting advantages of North Korea might not be the greatest way to stop them but it will only make North Korea feel more threatened and anxious.

I hope other countries other than US and South Korea will give more attention in finding a solution to stop North Korea’s threatening actions, because as I have said before, the problem is becoming a global problem. The experts say if North Korea’s threat become a disastrous result, it will be the second Korean War. Considering how powerful the weapons have become since the last Korean War, this would bring the catastrophe to the world, if we do not solve the problem peacefully anytime soon.

 

 

Reference:

 

Visual Reference:

Reflection:

  1. I think my title was short and powerful enough to draw reader’s attention. It includes the key point of the magazine article and also enough curiosity to the readers
  2. I started by talking about the latest issue related to my topic and relate it to my personal background. People who did not know about the news would be drawn by the introductory paragraph and wonder what the issue is.
  3.  I have pertained my tone of warning and seriousness throughout the article by talking about what different threats North Korea have done and how aggressive they have gotten as the time passed by showing the timeline.
  4. By keeping the tone of seriousness throughout the article could give reader a clarity of my idea. I am not sure if my article has a uniqueness of presentation except I used the timeline to give easier way for the reader to understand my point.
  5. I tried to avoid the vagueness by putting statistical evidence and timely evidence. However, because of the characteristic of my topic ; politic and history, it could seem cliche. I tried to develop my article by starting out with the recent event, then go deeper by stating the actual issue with evidences and end it with my personal opinion and perspective about the issue.
  6. The persuasive stance was made by using many sources and showing the historic evidence. I also stated what the UN has been doing about the North Korea such as sanctions and suggested what kind of development could be made. I argued that some more improvement about dealing with North Korea could be made within UN, other than just making sanctions.
  7. I used 9 references which includes 3 primary research, 6 secondary sources. Also, there are 3 visual references.
  8. I used the sources to make the issue sound more significant by giving the actual statistical evidences and historical evidences.
  9. I tried to persuade the readers by showing how weak North Korea was before, and how much they have developed. They are not just a small, powerless country anymore, but stronger than you think. They are not the greatest threat to worry about, but considering their unexpected actions in the past, they could be the one that stabs you in your back.
  10. I selected 2 political cartoons for my visuals, which shows the sarcasm and criticism. Other visual includes the quote that North Korea has said towards US. I specifically used this photo to highlight the seriousness and support my evidence.
  11. The class workshop about developing my claim has helped a lot to organize my thoughts and find the most strong claim I could think about. Looking at my peers comment about the claim and what else I could include in my article to develop has helped a lot and I actually edited my draft based on those.
  12. I have put hyperlinks on the visuals and for the timeline
  13. I tried my best to use the right grammar and use bigger words to intensify the article’s idea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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