North Korea and Russia (06-09-2017)

Attached article underlines an historic fact, often forgotten in the current and ongoing crisis around North Korea. The post-war division of the Korean peninsula between an American and a Soviet area created  much of the same kind of problems as the post war division of Germany. In both cases Stalin hoped to conquer the other part: the blockade of West-Berlin in 1948-1949 and the invasion of South Korea in 1950. Fortunately Germany was peacefully reunited before Vladimir Putin came to power. Attached article also speaks about the growing cooperation between Russia and North Korea. It does not as yet mention the extent to which North Korea depends on Russian technology in its weapons development, including nuclear and missile technology. For America, the Russian-North Korean alliance is a far greater problem than the Chinese-North Korean relationship. Rather than considering a military strike, the United States should develop a new East-Asian version of the post-war policy of containment; that is containing the further growth of Russian destabilizing policies in the East Asian region.