Power In North Korea

Power is often found in security; the most powerful nations today know this statement could not be more correct. As of today, nine countries currently obtain nuclear weapons including the United States, The United Kingdom, Russia, China, and North Korea (Ross, 2016). While countries like the US and the United Kingdom are relatively open with each other about their nuclear program countries like North Korea and Russia keep an extremely tight lip. North Korea see maintaining their nuclear program as a way of maintaining their sovereignty. North Koreas nuclear program began in the 1950s under the direction of Kim Il-Sung and the Soviet Union (Ross, 2016). Under Kim Il-sung becoming a nuclear state meant that the ideas of Juche would be imbedded

Koreas tangled past helps outsiders better understand the relations between the people in the North and the South. Many historians who study Korea look back to its colonial period from 1868-1945 to understand how Koreans not only view themselves but the outside world. For Europeans, nationalism has been a part of their culture and heritage for years that it’s hard to separate one from the other. But for Koreans their nationalism was repeatedly taken from them by other powerful “mother nations.” The Sino-Japanese war is a prime example of the power struggle over Korea in the late 19th century. The war was formally fought between the Chinese, Japanese’s and Russian empires for control over peninsula. In the end, it was the Japanese who found them self’s triumphant and their reign over the Korean Peninsula began. While the Japanese occupation radically modernized Korea they also sought to limit the spread and embracement of Korean culture and heritage. Many women were rapped during this time and victimized by Japanese living in Korea. While these crimes against the Koreans are unforgivable the Japanese influence helped bring Korea to the world stage. During the middle of the 20th century Korea would find itself under the control of the Soviet Union. The North and south would be broken at the 38th Parallel and two new nations would be born. The Formation of The Democratic people’s Republic of Korea. The occupation of the Soviet Union would also lead to the birth of the Norths nuclear program. The people of the North tend to believe in popular propaganda that the Koreans were able to defeat the Japanese on their own thanks to their fearless leader Kim il-Sung. However, if it was not for the intervention of the USSR the north and the south would probably stand united today. Today the two Koreas run under very different forms of government,