Donald Rumsfeld said last Friday that a nuclear test by North Korea would be a “failure of the international community.” As of Sunday night, we were able to see the utter failure of the foreign policy of the United States and the UN leading all the way back to the early 1990’s. Even though this has been a failure of the international community, this failure was started with the practice of appeasement by the Clinton administration, and will continue all the way up through the handling of this situation. During the 1990’s, the Clinton administration treated the North Koreans like a child in the grocery store. Parents know that kids always act up when they enter the candy section of the store. When children see something they want, even if they know it isn’t good for them, will throw a fit to embarrass their parents to get what they want. At this point the parents have two points. One, the can give the child what they want and teach the child that throwing a fit gets what they desire, or two, take the child outside and give them a good spanking. The Clinton’s and the world community acted like typical liberals that believe you can reason with a three year old. Hand over fist, North Korea was given what ever they wanted. North Korea would say things like, “give us nuclear reactors or we will produce nuclear bombs.” United States and the UN would say, “sure you can have them as long as you promise to stop production of nuclear weapons, but we aren’t going to make your prove that you stopped. We will just take your word for it.” There were no checks or reparations if North Korea failed to fulfill their obligations. In 2000 when President Bush became the new leader of the United States, a new tone of voice was being said to North Korea. For the first time in eight years, the United States started sound like Robert Dinero in Casino. The United States stands strong on its stance that says, “You can either be apart of the international community, receive technology, and better your economic standing or you can have nuclear weapons. You can’t have both.” Unfortunately, there is nothing the United States or the rest of the world community can do back up this statement. As stated earlier, the real failure will be how this situation is handled. The hands of the United States are tied and we are forced to rely on other countries whom we should have no business trusting. The first major error was to listen to the Chinese when they said they could handle the North Koreans and keep them from testing a nuclear devise. Since saving face in Asia is very important, the Chinese are going to try to handle this situation and end this tension. We need to understand however, that the time situation does not allow for either the Chinese or the South Koreans to ease tensions. Both the Chinese and the South Koreans are attempting to bring unification to the Korean peninsula, but their plan will take decades. Neither side wants to see quick and massive change due to a refuge crisis that would occur; sending North Koreans either into China or South Korea. Neither country could handle a large influx of refugees. As usual the UN will sit there twiddling their thumbs, even with a new Secretary General from South Korea. The members of the Security Council will not take any steps to correct these actions by the North Koreans, because of the two choices they could take. Placing economic sanctions will do nothing to a country that is already isolated from the rest of the world and China would veto any resolution sending troops into the region. Now that we have seen what our so called allies can do with the situation, let’s look and see what the United States can do. Survey says… Absolutely nothing. Our only troops in the region would be over run by the North Koreans in under twenty minutes and using tactical nuclear weapons would only give an extra ten minutes of defense. Any additional manpower is currently being utilized in other parts of the world. Right now our greatest hope is that Japan decided to amend their constitution to allow for the creation of an offensive military. With Japan having the capability for offensive strikes against North Korea a lot of pressure would be taken off of the United States. This however, would increase tensions between North Korea and the Japanese as well as bring back the historical problems between the South Koreans, China, and Japan. For once, I don’t have the answer. All I know is this is turning into a giant cluster that will have repercussions throughout the world. If a clear message is not sent to the North Koreans we are going to see other countries follow in the same path. Nuclear weapons can generate a lot of money for a country on the black market, not to mention other countries that have stated publicly that they have a desire to acquire nuclear weapons despite world opinion. The clear message must be sent now. | 
