Author Wade L. Huntley Simons Centre for Disarmament and Nonproliferation Research
US policies toward North Korea under the Bush Administration are frequently critiqued for being insufficiently responsive to the “real” circumstances currently prevailing on the Korean Peninsula and in the East Asian region. This article argues that this critique is insufficient. The ideological and almost personal predilections driving the Bush Administration’s North Korea policy are not incidental shortcomings easily rectified. Rather, this orientation expresses the administration’s deeper ideational foundations. The Bush Administration’s North Korea policy is but one of many expressions of this foundation, the commitment to which impinges “realistic” US response to North Korea’s growing nuclear ambitions.
The confrontation between North Korea and the United States reflects metaphorically the Biblical parable of David and Goliath. David prevails because he has unshakable faith in the certainty that of victory despite his evident inferiority, and because, fearless in this faith, he finds and then exploits weaknesses Goliath didn’t realize he had. Goliath’s similarly unquestioned faith in his own strength blinded him to his vulnerabilities. The United States, facing an adversary correspondingly uninhibited by US potency, risks encountering an equivalent fate...(Continued)
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