Foreign Policy Memo Final Draft

To: Donald Trump, President of the United States

From: Your Name

Date: 2/24/19

Re: The North Korea Nuclear Program

Overview

A brief statement of the problem/issue: North Korea, formally referred to as DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) has been actively involved in manufacturing, installing, and testing ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons in the recent past. It is widely believed that the country has biological and chemical weapons which are commonly known as weapons of mass destruction and are very lethal.

Background of the problem: The DPRK nuclear program can be seen as a problem that started when the country admitted in October 2002 that it was running a nuclear weapons program in secret, which was a violation of the agreement it signed with America in 1994. In this agreement, DPRK had agreed that it would freeze its old weapons (CNN Library, 2019). In 2003, the nation went ahead and withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that it had signed in 1985 (CNN Library, 2019). After it declared that it has nuclear weapons in 2003, the country went ahead and started testing nuclear weapons from time to time, starting in 2006. In addition to these tests, DPRK has recently threatened to strike the United States mainland if the US continued forcing “their hand.” In 2016, North Korea made the announcement that they owned a miniature nuclear which is capable of fitting on ballistic missiles. The country also claimed that it detonated a nuclear warhead whose blast was estimated to have 10 kilotons of power (CNN Library, 2019). The latest threat came from the country’s leader claiming that he is still on with his plan of deploying the nuclear warheads in their battery.

Recommended Solution: In the past, North Korea has rejected several diplomatic inducements offered by various countries in efforts to entice the country abandon its nuclear program. Some of the inducements particularly from the United States include security guarantees, normalization of relations, confidence building, and food and other economic aid. Freezers have been used on several occasions but DPRK has sought reasons to violate them. I am sure your next meeting with North Korea’s leader will be about diplomatic talks in an effort to convince him to abandon the program. However, there is a high possibility, judging from past experience, that this kind of diplomacy is going to fail sooner than later. Therefore, I suggest that you take a different direction. A strategy that will definitely bear fruits is when all leaders in the international community will pool resources and overwhelmingly gang up against North Korea to bring its nuclear weapons program to an end. This strategy will compel the country to have only two options to choose from: regime survival or nuclear weapons.

Interests:

Threat to the country’s security: Occasionally, North Korea has announced that recently threatened to strike the United States mainland if the US continued forcing “their hand.” This clearly indicates that North Korea’s nuclear weapons are a threat to US’ security.

Adverse effect on the economy: If North Korea’s leader woke up one day and decided to make his threats good, the effect to the economy would be enormous.

Health effects: Residents of the islands living in and around water bodies where nuclear testing take place have reported symptoms of itchiness, fatigue, and vomiting caused by radiation sickness. It has been observed from past nuclear testing that consequences from the testing reached a wider area than initially expected (Gutwald, 2017).

Options:

Military options: This is one of the options that the United States and the international community have to deal with North Korea and their nuclear program. However, this option seem to have two key shortcomings. First, it is true that North Korea has quite devastating avenging capability, thus this option may cause more destruction and harm to innocent people. Second, North Korea has done a good job in concealing its key equipment, and their missiles become harder to target as they become more mobile.

Striking the nuclear facilities from the air, accompanied by commando raids and cyber-attacks: This could result in considerable damage, but the system could be repaired soon enough, given that it is indigenous.

The third option is to overturn the government by eliminating some key commanders, including the commander-in-chief. However, this may backfire and cause a serious war.

Recommendation: At the moment, neither diplomacy nor a military attack seem to be effective. However, since we are sure that diplomacy would not succeed (it has not helped in the past) we can now mobilize all leaders in the international community will pool resources and overwhelmingly gang up against North Korea to bring its nuclear weapons program to an end. This strategy will compel the country to have only two options to choose from: regime survival or nuclear weapons.

References

CNN Library. (2019, January 24). North Korea Nuclear Timeline Fast Facts. Retrieved from CNN: https://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/29/world/asia/north-korea-nuclear-timeline---fast-facts/index.html

Gutwald, M. (2017, March 23). Marshall Islands Nuclear Testing and Health Effects. Retrieved from Stanford.edu: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2017/ph241/gutwald2/