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Essay The Ends, Ways and Means of Us Policy Towards North Korea

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The Ends, Ways, and Means of
US Policy Towards North Korea
By
Cynthia M. Lewis
Inter/National Security Studies
Lesson 8
22 June 2012
Instructor: Dr. Bruce Bechtol Jr.

Air Command and Staff College
Distance Learning
Maxwell AFB, AL One of the security challenges facing the United States (US) is the US and North Korea relations. The US policy toward North Korea is diplomatic yet firm. North Korea is our longest standing adversary. Policy toward North Korea is one of the most enduring foreign policy challenges. In this essay I will discuss the security challenge of U.S. and North Korea, the theory of international relation, realism, how it illuminates this challenge and how the instruments of …show more content…

The first is external: the challenge posed by its nuclear weapons program and the threat of proliferation off the Korean Peninsula. The second is essentially but not wholly internal: the challenge posed by the pending transfer of power in Pyongyang and potential for instability as the process plays out. This complex reality underscores the need for balance and strategic patience if the twin dangers of proliferation and instability on the peninsula are to be successfully managed. In order to produce these changes in the policy, there must be a determination of the ends/ goals, ways for achieving the goals, and means as the instruments and activities for implementing ways. The history of the relationship between the United States and North Korea led up to today’s policy of dealing with North Korea through diplomatic channels. The U.S. helped to divide the Korean peninsula at the end of World War II, and then waged war against North Korea in the 1950s. Although the U.S. signed a peace agreement rather than a peace treaty with North Korea after the war, its policy toward the country changed. Instead of trying to overthrow the North Korea government, the U.S. government adopted a policy of containing communism. During the 1980’s, associations between North Korea and the U.S. start to take on a new diplomatic form. North Korea’s nuclear weapons program had become a pressing international issue

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