The Korean peninsula has been in the news a lot in recent years, with tensions flaring up every few months between the government in the North and the allied United States and South Korea. The Korean War, which originally divided the two nations, was halted in 1953 by an armistice agreement instead of a peace treaty, so the two are still technically at war. Since the armistice there have been numerous clashes across the Korean Demilitarized Zone, many of which have been deadly.
The isolation of the Korean peninsula dates back to the 14th century, when most of the Eastern Asian countries had similar policies. Korea was even named the hermit kingdom after dominant Western Powers moved in during the 19th century for trade. Japan annexed Korea in 1910. When they were defeated during the Second World War, Korea was temporarily split into Soviet and American territories similar to the arrangement in Germany.
Cold war tensions between the two eventually grew into the full scale Korean War, with both sides backed by their allies. After a crushing defeat the North Koreans fell back in on themselves. Their leader, Kim Il Sung, forged a theory of self reliance that still persists to this day. After China resumed relations with the West, and the fall of the Soviet Union, Korea stood even more alone than ever. Throughout the 90s relations with the South started to warm, but fell apart again when George W. Bush included them in his Axis of Evil. Around 2003 North Korea withdrew from the Treaty of Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Moving into the present day of information technology, we don’t really know much that goes on within the North Korean borders. Strict government monitoring and general lack of internet access means that normal citizens are unable to really interact with the outside world. Instead of the general internet, North Koreans have access to a government controlled intranet, with basic news and weather information as well as an email and wiki service. This lack of communication has led to multiple claims by the government that haven’t been substantiated.
All of the recent issues with North Korea have been in relation to their nuclear weapons program. In late 2006, North Korea announced that they had conducted their first successful nuclear weapons test. Seismic evidence reports support this claim, and it has generally been accepted. Since then they have been constantly expanding their nuclear arsenal and have continued weapons and missile tests. Outside reports and evaluations have confirmed at least 4 successful warhead tests.
Most recently, the North Koreans claimed that they successfully tested a hydrogen bomb. This is a concerning statement for the surrounding nations, as a hydrogen bomb remains the most powerful explosive weapon in history. The claims surrounding the weapon detonated don’t fall in line with earlier reports of hydrogen weapons, producing only around 8% of the power of the Tsar-bomb (the largest hydrogen bomb ever detonated). The North Korean test took place in February of this year, and since then tensions have been running higher than ever along the DMZ.
The U.N. Security Council has been very vocal with North Korea about their missile program. Along with insisting that they stop their warhead tests the U.N. have also issued statements telling them to cease launching satellite tests, but the launches have continued. North Korea continues to issue statements that they have intercontinental ballistic missile capabilities, but this also hasn’t been supported. Their space program is the most practical test that they have conducted relating to intercontinental missiles. The sensitive pieces of hardware needed to successfully launch an attack are re-entry sensors and deployment capabilities, which ensure that the missiles will deploy when they need to. On February 7th of this year they successfully launched an observation satellite. Reports of the level of success have varied, with NASA stating that it is tumbling uncontrollably out of orbit, and the Korean Committee of Space Technology stating that it was operating perfectly. Just another case of North Korean secrecy.
So far, most of my discussion has revolved around things that the North Korean government has done, and why it acts this way.
The global community does not have many ties to North Korea, and as such the U.N. does not have many ways to influence the attitudes of their government. International relations can be a balancing act, with very little falling in between asking nicely and a fully fledged war. One of the methods commonly employed is the economic sanction, which is a restriction on trade or economic transactions placed on a country by one or more other countries. Sanctions can also be placed on organizations, companies, or individuals.
Economic sanctions are commonly employed by larger, more powerful countries on their less powerful trading partners. The U.N. also frequently uses them to get their way. The use of economic sanctions dates back a long way through history. Their most prominent modern use is the United States Cuban embargo, started by President John F. Kennedy in the 60s. Sanctions have a wide array of uses, such as forcing governments to cease hostile actions or even improving living conditions for their citizens.
The North Korea government has a very long list of sanctions that have been placed against them, mostly for violating the U.N. treaties on nuclear weapons and their general lack of democracy. Countries and groups which have placed sanctions against Pyongyang include the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, China, the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, and even our home and native Canada.
The success rate of economic sanctions is a delicate topic. Any sanction placed has the chance of negatively affecting the imposing country’s economy as well by limiting the available markets for investment. Through varying the definition of “success” by small amounts, the percent of successful sanctions can change as much as 30%. North Korea really shows no sign of slowing their research now, even though the United States and United Nations recently imposed even more sanctions. The nation has been isolated for so long that the recent sanctions must mean almost nothing to them.
I finished writing this article a few days early, but I needed to come back and continue it. Last Friday, March 18th, North Korea tested another ballistic missile. Firing into the sea, reports estimate that their latest attempt to reach the U.S. mainland made it about 800 km into the sea, a lot less than the 9200 km between Pyongyang and Los Angeles. The recently imposed sanctions have not changed North Korea’s stance on gaining the power to pre-emptively launch a nuclear strike.
While researching for this article, I learned a few cool things about Korea. My favourite of these is that the DMZ between the North and South borders is the world’s largest unofficial nature reserve. It is believe that many species which are endangered or extinct outside of the approximate 1000 km2 live on within the DMZ. The South Korean government recently filed a petition with the Man and the Biosphere Programme to have the area south of the demarcation line and a large section of private property declared a biosphere reserve, but this was opposed by Pyongyang and was eventually turned down. North Korea is also home to the world’s fourth largest flagpole, which comes in at an impressive 160 metres, and only 10 metres shy of the world record.
Leave a Reply