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North Korea Takes on the World
Random House
January 2006
352 pages
ISBN: 1400062942
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
"If we lose, I will destroy the world," said Kim Jong Il,
supreme leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Kim's regime insults all of us. Its very existence is an
affront to humanity's sense of decency and challenges
accepted notions of politics, economics, and social theory.
More important, North Korea threatens us.
The Great Leader, as Kim now calls himself, can change the
course of history with an act of unimaginable devastation.
He possesses an arsenal of nuclear weapons and the ballistic
missiles to deliver them. Today he can hit most of the
continent of Asia and even parts of the American homeland.
In a few years-probably by the end of this decade-the
diminutive despot will cast his shadow across the globe: He
will be able to land a nuke on any point on the planet.
Even now, everyone is at risk. North Korea has said it might
sell weapons to others, thereby making itself the first
"nuclear Kmart." Who wants to live in a world where anyone
with enough cash and a pickup truck can incinerate a city?
For six decades, America has tried every tactic to stop
Kim's Korea, but it has failed each time. The current
approach-providing aid and assurances of security in return
for an end to weapons programs-mimics the failed diplomacy
of the 1990s. Negotiations, sponsored by China, have yet to
produce an enduring solution.
Unfortunately, Kim has paid no price for destabilizing the
global order. In fact, many countries, including America,
reward him for his fundamental challenge to the
international system. Perhaps that is why the world is now
further away from a solution to the Korean nuclear crisis
than it was a decade ago.
In a contest that will be decided byfinesse more than power,
Kim is winning. If he ultimately prevails-and time is
running out for Washington-his success will probably result
in a quick erosion of American power. The world's strongest
nation does not have much of a future if it cannot defend
its most vital interests against a reviled autocrat like Kim
from a small country like North Korea.
The current conflict with Kim Jong Il is a crisis like no
other, perhaps the twenty-first century's moment of greatest
consequence. This is where the world writes its history for
the next hundred years. Nuclear Showdown is the first and
only major study to look at all dimensions of this crisis.
Gordon G. Chang proposes solutions that go beyond the
conventional suggestions seen elsewhere.
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