Three decades are long enough to look back critically on what happened during this time and to analyze what went wrong with South Korea and the United States regarding their joint, yet failed, efforts to end the North’s nuclear program.
It all began in March 1993 when North Korea threatened to pull out from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). After a flurry of bilateral diplomatic efforts, the U.S. and North Korea eventually signed the Agreed Framework the following year which called for freezing Pyongyang's nuclear program in exchange for economic assistance. The deal was praised as a diplomatic breakthrough.
However, peace was short-lived.
Tensions erupted again in 2002 when the North made the bombshell announcement that it had a highly enriched uranium program to produce the material necessary to manufacture nuclear weapons. The situation has gone from bad to worse since then. North Korea withdrew from the NPT in 2003 despite international condemnation; conducted its first nuclear test in 2006, which was followed by five more tests up to 2017; and launched several different types of missiles, including an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
It is now assumed that the North has ICBMs........