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War and Diplomacy [|__http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2012/04/10/white-house-warns-north-korean-missile-launch-could-cut-us-food-aid__] Summary: North Korea is working on making a ballistics missile that will be ready for launch late this week. The United States is talking to North Korea’s international partners to try and discourage the launch of this missile. If they do launch the missile it will go against two of the United Nations Security Council's resolutions. If North Korea goes through with the missile launch then the United States will stop nutritional aid to the already isolated country.

Relevance: North Korea became a country in 1948 after the division of Korea, this new country became known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. In 1945 Kim II-Sung was named dictator of North Korea and by 1949 North Korea was a full on communist dictatorship. Then North Korea got involved in the Korean War which ended in a two year stalemate and then the dividing line between North and South Korean was remade and still stands today. After the war North Korea’s economy started to get worse and worse and hit rock bottom when the USSR could no longer support them. Shortly after that Kim II-Sung died and his son, Kim Jong-il, took over for him. But he couldn’t help the falling economy and in 2003 over half of the population was starving. To try and help out North Korea, the United States, South Korea, the European Union, and the U.N. all sent over 300 million dollars in food aid. Today North Korea remains a communist state that is still suffering. In 2011 Kim Jong-il died and his son, Kim Jong-un, took over for him (History). This relates to class because right now we are discussing the Korean War and the involvement of the USSR in North Korea.

In the 1980’s North Korea started to operate a nuclear weapons program. Many talks occurred between North Korea, South Korea, and the United States over the use of nuclear weapons. Eventually North Korea was supposed to stop their program and take apart their nuclear reactors but they never actually went thru with it and continued to work on their projects (Nuclear). In 2005 North Korea officially declared that it had succeeded in testing nuclear weapons (History). In 2007 North Korea once again said they would shut down their military program but they again failed to do so. In 2009 they continued testing and now they have made a new missile that they plan to launch later this week (History).

Evaluation: My article covers both of the topics of this weeks current event, war and diplomacy. The war part is covered by North Korea’s history because it was involved in the Korean War. It is also covered because if North Korea continues to test and launch missiles then there could be another war. The diplomacy section is covered because this is an overseas foreign affair. What we decide to do about this could affect North Korea’s whole way of living. Without our aid they could spiral further into a depression and millions could go starving. I think it would be in North Korea’s best interest to rethink launching this missile. They need to think about the wellbeing of their people before they start looking at military advances that the rest of the world does not approve of. The launching of this missile could change everything between the United States and North Korea. Why would they want to risk all the aid we have given them? Other countries also feel the same way to they will lose more than US support. North Korea needs to focus on the important thing right now, which is their citizens.

Questions: 1. How many other nuclear weapons projects is North Korea working on? 2. How will North Korea function if we take our aid away? 3. Is this missile aimed at anything? 4. Could North Korea start a war over this? 5. Will North Korea always be a communist nation? 6. If the missile is launched how will other countries react?

Works Cited  "History of North Korea - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2012. .

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">"Nuclear Weapons Program ." Weapons of Mass Destruction. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2012. <www.fas.org/nuke/guide/dprk/nuke/index.html>.