North Koreas Foreign Policy Behaviors toward the United States: Constructive Entanglements in Historical Factors Since the 1970s

Abstract

A commonplace assumption among scholars in the North Korean studies was that North Korea is evil or a country threatening the international community. Instead, this research argues that North Koreas aggressive approaches with nuclear weapons to the United States were not originally intended in the 1970s. Unlike the conventional wisdom of U.S.-North Korea relations, this research analyzes the origin of North Koreas rapprochement toward the United States, and it became the aggressive approach through constructive entanglements in historical factors in the Northeast Asia region. It demonstrates that the U.S.s indifference to the acute security anxieties caused by exogenous factors associated with the end of the Cold War led to North Koreas adoption of an asymmetrical deterrence posture in its foreign policy toward the United States. It also suggests that bilateral and multilateral dialogues are needed to resolve and normalize the relations between the United States and North Korea.