North Korea as a Threat?

In his 2003 piece titled "Threatening, But Deterrence Works", David Kang noted that those who see North Korea as threatening need to explain why the Hermit Kingdom - having waited 50 years - would finally attack now that it is one-twentieth (even one-thirtieth, according to another section of the article) the size of the South.

Kang noted that even the state of New Hampshire's economy is twice as large as that of the impoverished nation.

Kang also wrote that North Korea has not engaged in terrorism for well over a decade, "because their goal is not suicide and random wanton destruction, but survival."

Not that we should cast our weary eyes away from North Korea. Quite the contrary. But it is certainly important to put things in perspective.

After all, as Kang concluded: "We have no reason to think that deterrence which has held for 50 years might suddenly dissolve like dew in the summer sun."

Kang's point - if North Korea is not the threat that most scholarship believes that it is, then U.S. policy may be inadvertently raising tensions in the region, and the U.S. may also be wasting resources designed to counter a threat that does not exist.