June 16, 2009 UPDATE  North Korea in the past week  pushed the standoff with the rest of the world to new dangerous levels and consequences.  North Korean officials stated that the rogue nation will  “weaponize” all its plutonium and acknowledged a long-suspected uranium enrichment program for the first time. Both plutonium and uranium are key ingredients of atomic bombs.  North Korea has also said that any ceasing or stopping of their ships is an act of war.  Tensions are high on the Korean Peninsula and the North appears to be heading for some sort of self destruction or desperate action that may create a world wide threat.

June 07, 2009 UPDATE  North Korea has further complicated it’s relations with the West as the Hermit Nation held a secret court to put on trial two American journalist and sentencing them to 12 years in prison with hard labor.  The North’s Central Court tried American TV reporters Laura Ling and Euna Lee during proceedings running from last Thursday to Monday and found them guilty of a “grave crime” against the nation, and of illegally crossing into North Korea, the country’s state-run Korean Central News Agency said.  Ling and Lee — who were working for former Vice President Al Gore’s California-based Current TV — cannot appeal because they were tried in North Korea’s highest court, where decisions are final.  The circumstances surrounding the trial of the two journalists and their arrest March 17 on the China-North Korean border have been shrouded in secrecy, as is typical of the reclusive nation. The trial was not open to the public or foreign observers.

June 01, 2009 UPDATE

North Korea has not let up it’s pressure in it’s confrontation with the West in it’s reckless display of missile technology following the country’s second nuclear weapons test.  Right now according to a U.S. official the rogue nation is preparing to test a long range missile that has the capability of hitting Alaska.  In other developments in the crisis, North Korea has increased it’s defenses and has conducted amphibious assault maneuvers along the country’s Western shore.  The military exercises are close to disputed waters that were the battleground of deadly clashes between North Korean and South Korean navies in the last decade.  North Korea is posturing itself as if they are readying their country for war without any known provocation from anyone.  The North has said that the searching or seizing of it’s vessels will result in dire consequences for the U.S. and South Korea.  The West is attempting to stop the spread of North Korea’s weapons and technology to other interested countries such as Iran, Syria and other interested nations that will create instability in the Middle East and other venues where the deadly cargo arrives.

May 27, 2009

In the past few weeks the actions of the North Korean leadership has opened the world’s eyes to how dangerous even the smallest of countries can be when they yield the might of a nuclear weapon.  North Korea on Monday shocked the world when it set off an underground nuclear bomb test that was as powerful as the nuclear bomb used by the United States to attack Hiroshima to end WWII.  The test comes less than two months after the North enraged the US and its allies by test firing a long-range ballistic missile.  Officials in South Korea said they had detected a tremor consistent with those caused by an underground nuclear explosion. The country’s Yonhap news agency reported that the North had test-fired three short-range missiles from a base on the east coast immediately after the nuclear test.  The underground atomic explosion, at 9.54am local time, created an earthquake measuring magnitude 4.5 in Kilju county in the country’s north-east, reports said.  The U.N. Security Council met Monday in New York to discuss what President Barack Obama called Pyongyang’s “blatant defiance” of resolutions banning the regime from developing weapons of mass destruction. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown condemned the test as a “danger to the world.” Russia’s Foreign Ministry called it “a serious blow to international efforts” to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.  French officials said they would push for new sanctions, and even traditional Pyongyang ally China said it was “resolutely opposed” to the test, which Russian officials estimated yielded a powerful 10- to 20-kiloton blast — enough to flatten a city and far more than North Korea managed in a 2006 atomic test. The 2006 North Korean nuclear test was the detonation of a nuclear device conducted on October 9, 2006.  The blast was estimated to have had an explosive force of less than one kiloton, and some radioactive output was detected.

This huge step in kiloton blast shows that North Korea is becoming more proficient at making nuclear weapons and is once again willing to push the envelope to get the world to pay attention to the danger they present if world powers do not allow themselves to be blackmailed once again by the “Hermit Nation”.

Is North Korea Having Nuclear Weapons A World Threat?

It is a grave threat.  In one way it is a threat because North Korea is a failing state that depends on outside aid to feed and in the winter to keep the country in heating fuel so that the people do not freeze.  Sanctions and lack of trade has crippled the country that has fallen under the spell of flamboyant leader Kim Jong-Il who tokk over after his fathers death in 1994.  North Korea possesses the world’s 5th largest standing army.

Threat Number One:  South Korea and the 28,500 U.S. troops stationed there.

A major threat is the one that North Korea poses to her neighbor to the south, South Korea.  The two nations are separated by a demilitarized Zone as a result of the cease fire agreement that paused the Korean War.  The Korean War was a conflict between Communist and non-Communist forces in Korea from June 25, 1950, to July 27, 1953. At the end of World War II, Korea was divided at the 38th parallel into Soviet (North Korean) and U.S. (South Korean) zones of occupation  Korea prior to the end of the WWII was part of the Japanese Empire since 1910. In 1948 rival governments were established: The Republic of Korea was proclaimed in the South and the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea in the North.  Acting as the first major battle of the “Cold War” relations amongst the divided nations deteriorated quickly after the split.  In June 1950 North Korean Forces invaded South Korea.  The conflict drew the United States along with 15 other UN member nations to assist South Korea while China entered the conflict to assist North Korea.  The war stalemated at the 38th parallel when the peace accord was established.  The problem here is that neither nation signed the document ending the war.  In all reality the war has never ended.  The two countries did agree to a 1992 non-aggression pact that recognized the U.N. established boundary.  The North has often objected the the boundaries maintaining that it should be shifted further south.  In 1999 and again in 2002 disputes in the Yellow Sea has led to bloody battles.  In 2004 North Korea and South Korea exchanged fire, but was less intensive.

Famine struck the nation’s 24 million inhabitants in 1998 and 1999. Two years of floods was followed by severe droughts in 1997 and 1998 again, causing devastating crop short falls and starvation. Because of a lack of fuel and machinery parts, and weather conditions that encouraged parasites, only 10% of North Korea’s rice fields could be worked. The staggering food crisis necessitated foreign aid from abroad. In the fall of 1999, the severe famine, which claimed an estimated 2 million to 3 million lives began to be controlled. Malnutrition and hunger, however, continued to plague North Korea into the mid-2000s. Thousands of refugees have attempted to flee to China or South Korea, but most were captured and those who do not successfully escape face torture or execution from the brutal government.

In the end North Korea’s nuclear weapons program is a true threat to South Korea and the U.S. soldiers stationed along the demilitarization zone on the South Korean side.  North Korea at times is extremely desperate for what it needs to keep it’s regime going and it’s people from starving or freezing.   They feel a constant paranoia to the rest of the world that they have isolated themselves from.  Each time that North Korea flares up its missile or nuclear weapons program the world is getting that much closer to a nuclear catastrophe. 

Threat Number Two:  North Korea The Nuclear Arms  and  Weapons Dealer

Another reason that North Korea likes to conduct nuclear weapons test as well as ballistic missile tests are to attract buyers for this technology abroad.  Just by North Korea firing off a nuclear bomb in their underground tests and testing it’s long range ballistic missiles the poor country is attempting to draw in purchasers from the Middle East such as Syria and possibly countries such as Iran or Venezuela.  It is their equivalent of America’s Detroit Auto show.  The main difference in Detroit they are showing off their latest cars while in North Korea they are displaying their nuclear weapons and missile technology.

North Korea sells arms primarily as a source of foreign exchange. North Korea’s state-run economy produces almost nothing of export value, with one exception: weapons of mass destruction.  During the Iran–Iraq War, North Korea supported Iran for oil and foreign exchange by selling both domestically produced arms to Iran and serving as an intermediary for deniable sales by the Soviet Union, Soviet satellites, and China

In 2006 three months after the United States successfully pressed the United Nations to impose strict sanctions on North Korea because of the country’s nuclear test, Bush administration officials allowed Ethiopia to complete a secret arms purchase from the North, in what appears to be a violation of the restrictions, according to senior American officials

North Korea selling arms abroad is not a revelation. At least half a dozen countries including Pakistan, Libya and Syria are known to have purchased missiles from the rogue regime.  North Korea has become a surprisingly important factor in Middle East politics due to its indiscriminate arms’ and technology sales to radical regimes. In particular, Pyongyang’s supply of missiles and missile technology to Iran, Syria, Libya, and Iraq poses a tremendous threat to regional stability. The possibility that North Korea will transfer nuclear technology to extremist regimes is an extremely dangerous scenario that could plunge the Middle East into disaster

In 2008 North Korea had been selling multiple rocket launchers to military-ruled Myanmar since the two countries restored ties last year in violation of U.N. sanctions, Japan’s NHK public broadcaster reported.

North Korea will sell to anyone who has the cash the want.  They will also act as a middle man for Russia and China in their sales of arms to countries that the West would view as politically incorrect.  As long as North Korea can make money it is no holds barred it appears. They have been selling to extremist groups for some time.  North Korea sold over 10,000 rifles and other weapons in 1999 and 2000 to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the Philippines, a Japanese newspaper reported.

According to an article by the New York Times in 2008,  North Korea threatened to export nuclear weapons to international terrorists in 2005, according to a U.S. intelligence report made public.  The report expressed continued worries about threats from the reclusive communist regime to export nuclear arms. In April 2005, North Korea told a U.S. academic, who was not identified further, that Pyongyang “could transfer nuclear weapons to terrorists if driven into a corner,” the report stated. It was the first time that the U.S. intelligence community disclosed the basis for concerns about North Korea’s supplying terrorists with nuclear arms.

The latest anger from North Korea towards not only the United States but South Korea as well is that both countries have said that they will stop and confiscate illegal arms transactions from ships leaving North Korea.  The Rogue state said that they will take such actions and any further actions as reason to attack anyone that interferes with their activities.  This sounds like a desperate nation attempting to ship their weapons to other rogue nations seeking their technology.  The question now is whether or not Pyongyang will be pushed far enough into a corner economically to either sell to terrorists or unleash their weapons against regional foes such as South Korea or Japan as a act of desperation.

Threat Number Three:  Creation of a Broader Conflict

North Korea has frustrated China and Russia at times, but in the end both has stood sternly behind the Hermit Nation and has even benefited by utilizing Pyongyang to help deal arms to less attractive purchasers of the two super powers weapons abroad.  China and Russia has defended North Korea’s actions and has blocked extreme measures to punish the rogue nation.  They have ignored embargos by the West and the U.N.. 

If the West feels that there the only way to stop North Korea from selling it’s deadly weapons and spreading nuclear proliferation is through military means it could create a major standoff in the region.  North Korea is in China’s back yard and the giant feels that North Korea is their baby to deal with.  Even though China has put pressure on Pyongyang to step down in past confrontations, it appears that North Korea is growing more and more desperate to get money into their economy through arms sales.  China has kept a blind eye as does Russia to North Korea’s dangerous activities.  The question is whether China or Russia would stand down when their black market partner is attacked. In today’s war it would be difficult for them to fight through proxy as they had done in the first Korean War over 50 years ago.  There is danger that tensions could be raised to extremely dangerous levels with the old communist guard if a military conflict occurs.  It has a potential to head in many directions and with some very big players with much at stake.

Threat Number Four:  The North Korean Example

Another real danger that North Korea’s constant missile and atomic bomb tests presents, without anything being done to stop them is that it serves as very bad example to the rest of the world that may be seeking nuclear weapons.  If Iran believes that only countries with nuclear bombs get respect from the West then it would be well worth their time to achieve this status.  You are no longer threatened with attack because the repercussions of a nuclear counter attack in the region would be devastating.  Allowing North Korea to do what they want and when they want to do it only breeds nuclear proliferation.  It shows Iran, Syria, and other nuclear wannabes that it is in their best interests to get the bomb to fend off pressure from the West to  have democratic reform.  It is the greatest equalizer ever made by man and the number of members of this once exclusive club is going to keep growing.

Conclusion:  Is North Korea A Threat to the Rest of the World?

North Korea is a very real and major threat.  The biggest threat from the examples above is the sale of it’s weapons abroad to anyone that is willing to pay cash.  The U.N. and the West can not allow North Korea to move their weapons on the black market any longer.  The latest nuclear and ballistic tests have raised the stakes too high.  Constant pressure needs to be put on the unpredictable leadership of North Korea from all angles.  South Korea and Japan are very worried by the North’s constant threats and at some point will have to protect their interests just as Israel says it has to against Iran if they keep moving toward nuclear weapons.  The sale of these weapons to terrorist entities or networks is growing as each day passes if it already hasn’t happened.  In the end the longer that the world takes in dealing with North Korea’s selling and assisting other nations in weapons of mass destruction will come at a higher human price in the future.  Sooner or later North Korean weapons will fall into the wrong hands.  It is a gamble that the world can no longer take.