The death of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il ensures that, even for a moment, focus too much in a state that is on the other side of the planet and we hear from time to time with regard to its ballistic missile program nuclear capacity. North Korea is not among the concerns of Spanish foot, though it has been so since its foundation, one of those hot spots on the planet that can be the source of a great conflict.
Vassal state of China, Korea was the recognition of its independence in 1895, to become an object of desire of Russians and Japanese. After the war between the two powers the peninsula came under the influence of government in Tokyo, who finally annexed the country in 1910. After the Yalta Conference of the Korean peninsula was temporarily divided into two parts along the 38th parallel , under Soviet control the northern and the southern United States. He was one of the agreements between the partners to manage the postwar period, assuming that the process would end with the establishment of a democratic regime in a united state. Something that would not occur either in the German case or Korean.
The wartime alliance did not survive the end of the shaft. Soviet interests were incompatible with the vision of the democratic powers. In March 1947 Harry Truman recognized the end of the dream and the beginning of what would be called "Cold War". In this context we must place the proclamation by the United States, the Republic of Korea in August 1948, with its capital in Seoul, while the Soviet Union recognized the People’s Republic of North Korea, with its capital in Pyongyang and under the leadership of the Communist leader Kim Il-sung.
In 1950 the world felt that World War III was imminent fact, which would have even more disastrous than those caused by his two predecessors terrible. The nuclear bomb was a reality, had already been used and it was feared that henceforth its use become widespread. The trigger for this panic was the North Korean invasion of his twin state on 25 June of that year. It has been much debate whether the initiative came from Pyongyang or Moscow, but the fact is that in the end Stalin and Kim Il-sung acted in concert, the idea that the U.S. would avoid entering into a new conflict and it advisable to act quickly to establish an advantageous position in the strategic design of the Pacific. However, the Truman Administration, which by then had already made the central concept of containment strategy was willing to face up to Soviet expansionism anywhere on the planet.
Drift arms
In July 1953 an armistice was signed he came to recognize the communist failure in his attempt to unify the peninsula. Began a new period in the southern republic that evolved towards democracy and liberalism, to become one of the most admired and respected the world, while its northern equivalent of a ferocious dictatorship consolidated, unable to meet the people’s basic needs and where the ideological furor reached insane levels. The contrast between the evolution of the two states and, finally, the failure of communism throughout the world led the North Korean leadership to try to shield his regime by maximal exercise of deterrence. By acquiring long-range missiles and nuclear capability not only to guarantee their survival, but also would become a distinguished actor, a member of the select club of nuclear powers able to trade with products of high strategic value.
North Korean arms drift would not have been possible without the consent or cooperation of China, who never believed in the viability of the nonproliferation regime. North Korea found in Islam the natural market for its missile technology, poor adjustment of old Soviet Scud, and Pakistan, protected by the State government in Beijing, the partner to access both nuclear technology to new markets. ‘s strategy to date China has a high cost for its foreign policy , pushing many neighboring states the protective arms of the United States. The flight of a North Korean Taepodong-2 missile over Japan in 2006 was key to understanding the subsequent evolution of Japan’s diplomacy towards a stronger relationship with the United States and India, two large dams Chinese expansionism. Only by valuing the geographical position of the Korean peninsula, the centuries that came under Chinese vassalage, the attempt to avoid the collapse of a communist regime and the fear that millions of North Koreans to move toward the border in search of food and the future we can understanding attitude so expensive.
Diplomacy has failed to stop North Korean nuclear capability. A new era opened and presumably we will see major changes in the Pyongyang regime. If they are for good or ill soon know.