9781422275757

The crux of the Korean conflict is that the governments in both NorthandSouthKorea refuse to acknowledge the other as legitimate. While neither nation is willing to go to war over this issue (at least, not yet), the risk of tension boiling over into a true conflict has the potential to affect millions of lives. Each nation’s alliance is prob- lematic for the other: Relations between South Korea and China are rarely smooth and sometimes contentious, while North Korea has repeatedly demonstrated outright contempt for both Japan and the United States.North Korea’s aggressive pursuit of nuclear arms rep- resents a goal that Kim Jong-un and the Communist Party see as the

The estimated range of North Korea’s missiles.

Introduction

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