Commentary
North Korea, one of the few countries still adopting a totalitarian regime, has been accused of violating the Nuclear Treaty, which was signed between the United States and North Korea. The treaty was an agreement between six countries to stop any form of development of nuclear weapons, which could lead to potential threats in the near future. The trigger of this conflict was the agreement between US and North Korea, in which the US agreed to take North Korea off the state sponsor of terrorism list if North Korea shut down its nuclear facilities. However, North Korea accuses the US for not keeping the promise of updating the list while the US accuses North Korea of not having a protocol in place to verify the dismantling and accounting for Korea's nuclear program. In this article, it mostly provides us with the point of view of the United States, with reference to spokesmen at Washington as the content of the article is centred around the latter accusation from the US.
This article is generally sided towards the United States' side as the encompasses the point of view of various personnel in US. For example,Robert Einhorn, a former top non-proliferation expert at the State Department commented that the North Koreans had hoped that by threatening to reverse the nuclear disablement process, Washington would take them off the blacklist. This was clearly a one sided statement, favouring the US as the person accused North Korea of "threatening" to reverse the nuclear disablement process. This showed that bias is present in the various sources the article uses, such as the quote from Robert Einhorn. Thus the reliability of this article could be put into question.
Hand in hand, the article does not present us with enough factual data regarding North Korea reviving its nuclear plans. Although the article stated that North Korea defiantly suspended disabling its atomic plants and that personnel from US are monitoring the sites, it does not present us with the factual data and figures of the nuclear plants being reopened. Thus, the lack of factual data in this article can also put its credibility into question.
Moreover, the article does not provide us with a wide spectrum as the point of views of other countries involved are not stated extensively. For example, the article only stated that the general point of view of the South Korean and Japanese governments is regret while China takes a neutral stand. However, this article does not go into greater detail about the policies and the reactions of the related countries other than US. Thus the narrow point of view in this article could be identified as being biased.
However, the article does provide us with some possible future implications, which can be both positive and negative. Firstly, the positive implication is that countries will be more aware in handling foreign relations with countries whose intents are constantly put into question, be it a violation of human rights or production of dangerous weapons. If the situation evolves such that a mutual agreement is reached between the two parties, it would also imply that alternative policies could be implemented to help solve the conflicts that are present.
On the other hand, the negative implication is that tension in the South Asia region would rise. Given the fact that many disputes and unrests happen within this region up till today, such as the political unrest in Thailand and the opposing actions of Russia towards the West, shows us that if this situation was allowed to spread, it would spread like wildfire. This means that a series of events could even lead to possibly war, or the present threat of a new cold war. However, it was stated in the article that the North Korean government is unlikely to resurrect the nuclear reactors, so all these tensions could just be a false alarm.
In conclusion, I feel that this article is useful in addressing the point of view of the United States, with reference from a wide variety of data from spokesmen to experts. However, I feel that this article has not explained in detail the possible implications as it is crucial in any conflict to understand the threat of the conflict. Also, the article could have provided us with a wider perspective of related countries and make an effort to link it to the current affairs, such as the recent conflict involving the US and Russia which emerged. Lastly, I feel that it is up to the leaders of the countries to decide the future of the region as their descisions could lead to peace or conflict.
