Many countries are judging the confrontation between the DPRK and the US— incomparable in the size of territory, population and economic power—in their own way. The prevalent judgement is that the US is making a downhill march as a result of its hostile policy towards the DPRK, that it has pricked its own eyes with its finger.
When one looks back on last year, one can easily understand their judgement. The US thought that the DPRK would have no chance of survival and thus give up if it imposed extreme sanctions once more. However, what did the year 2016 saw in the DPRK?
The country made a breakthrough in the US moves (to stifle it through sanctions) with a successful first H-bomb test, and then successfully launched the satellite Kangmyongsong 4, declaring that it would attain the status of a socialist power by relying on its own strength, technology and resources. It demonstrated its capability for selfdefence by successfully conducting test-fire of newly developed anti-tank guided missile, test-fire of new-type large-calibre multiple launch rocket system, re-entry simulation test of ballistic rocket and static firing test and stage separation test of a high-thrust solid-propellant rocket motor. The following successful test-fire of strategic ballistic missile Hwasong-10 and underwater launch test of ballistic missile from a strategic submarine and a nuclear bomb test carried out in September last year shattered to smithereens the schemes of the hostile forces including the US.
The DPRK broke through the American moves for sanctions and strangulation and made a full display of its capabilities of self-reliant defence.
To look back, successive US presidents, starting from Truman, retired after delivering to their respective successors a heavier burden than their own in relation with the policy towards the DPRK. This is well evidenced by the relations between the two countries in the new century. Bush, who took office at the turn of the new century, clung to hard line military pressure to get the DPRK policy he had taken over from his predecessor Clinton, out of bankruptcy. His administration intensified sanctions against the DPRK, like financial sanctions and naval blockade, while indulging in nuclear threat and blackmail by placing the DPRK on the list of targets of nuclear preemptive strike. However, those sanctions backfired: they only propelled the DPRK to become a nuclear state. When he was leaving the White House, people sneered at him, saying that he had opened up a prelude of the end of the “sole superpower,” throwing away his promise to make the 21st century a “century of the US.”
Obama, who shouldered a heavy burden of dealing with a newly emergent nuclear state, dreamed a pipe dream. Resorting to the policy of “strategic patience,” he had extreme pressure and sanctions, accompanied by nuclear threat and blackmail, imposed against the DPRK. He thought that the country would change gradually in due course and finally collapse. However, what he did was that he made the DPRK a nuclear-armed nation and drove the mainland of the US into the greatest danger. Thus, he had retired from his office, delivering to his successor a heavier burden—to deal with a nucleararmed nation.
If the US ruling circles, obsessed with their outdated view, do not free themselves from their inveterate hatred but tenaciously resort to its hostile policy, it is impossible to predict the aftereffects.
An expert in the DPRK studies in the Economic Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences said: Despite the decades-long sanctions by the US, the DPRK possessed a powerful nuclear capability and has achieved successes in economic construction; its people’s standard of living has improved remarkably compared to the 1980s; sanctions can not stop its nuclear and missile development nor make it “surrender.”
This is a general view of the international community.
As the DPRK has made clear on several occasions, its nuclear forces are an inevitable outcome of its countermeasures against intensified nuclear threat by the US. The DPRK is developing its capability for nuclear strike stage by stage, exerting pressure on the US ruling circles.
Specialists who have long watched the developments on the Korean peninsula are of the opinion that the US has two alternatives—either improving its relations with the DPRK by concluding a peace treaty or having a recourse to the last resort— physical methods. The right to choose one of the alternatives belongs to the US, but the majority of specialists say that the US is well advised to choose the first one, for it conforms to the interests of the US.
The reality shows that the US should regard the ideology and system of the DPRK as a fait accompli and learn to exist together with the country.
An article by Kim Yong Un
Provided by: FLPH
