The latest news from the DMZ is far from encouraging. Washington and Pyonyang are racheting up their war talk with threats of preemptive strikes and bombers at the ready and talk of an all-out war, at the same time that diplomatic efforts appear to be flagging.
A South Korean delegation visiting Washington said that if they had to choose, they’d sooner have a nuclear-armed neighbor to the North, than a state in collapse. The United States feels differently. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld is said to have seriously set back diplomatic progress, with his latest reference to North Korea as a “terrorist regime”. And recently, the party-run newspaper in North Korea predicted the U.S. would attack soon, and warned the regime would not sit idle waiting on a pre-emptive strike.
Guests:
Han Park, University Professor of International Affairs and the Director of the Center for the Study of Global Issues at the University of Georgia, and author of “North Korea: the Politics of Unconventional Wisdom”
Thomas Christensen, Professor of Political Science at MIT
Rob Gifford, NPR reporter currently based in Seoul.