North Korea and Nukes

Nuclear proliferation has been "heating up" again as a major issue, with tensions rising between Pakistan and India, Israel and Iran, and the two Koreas -- not to mention the U.S. and Russia. In recent weeks, the country that has caused the most global concern is North Korea, since it has tested missile capability and has consistently thumbed its collective nose at the international community. A few days ago, hawkish neo-conservative John Bolton wrote an Op-Ed piece in The New York Times which assailed the Obama administration's foreign policy efforts toward North Korea thus far. FOR friend Frida Berrigan penned the first of four strong responses to Bolton published this Monday in the Times' letters section. Her original text is as follows:

To the Editor:

John R. Bolton, former United States ambassador to the United Nations, characterizes the Obama administration’s nuclear arms control efforts as “deeply troubling to America” (“A Fast Way to Lose the Arms Race,” Op-Ed, May 26). Rather, it is his insistence on clinging to irrelevant weapons systems whose primary purpose is mass destruction that is scary.

The nuts-and-bolts work of treaties and agreements President Obama set into motion with his Prague speech represents our best hope for true safety, and it is exciting, not “eyelid lowering.” When United Nations delegates met in New York earlier in May to discuss next year’s review of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the United States played a constructive role, and real progress was made.

At a time when the world community is grappling with the difficult — but not insurmountable — work of seeking security in a world free of nuclear weapons, Mr. Bolton’s gloom and doom scenarios are dangerous and counterproductive.

Frida Berrigan
Brooklyn, New York
The writer is senior program associate of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation.

FOR supporters should also look forward to reading "A New Korea Policy for the U.S.: Real Change We Can Believe In," an article written by John Kim -- the International Fellowship of Reconciliation's representative to the United Nations headquarters in New York -- which will be published later this month in Fellowship magazine.