Word: ils
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...game of high stakes. The security and stability of the region has been under threat for more than a decade because of the North's nuclear-weapons program. Efforts to convince North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to abandon his nuclear aspirations, either with offers of economic aid or threats of economic sanctions, have been unsuccessful?and officials in Washington and Tokyo have often expressed frustration that China hasn't used its considerable leverage to force concessions from Pyongyang. North Korea depends heavily upon China, its largest trading partner and strongest ally, to keep its sick economy on life support...
...Bush swore off the Wild West rhetoric of getting enemies "dead or alive," conceding that "in certain parts of the world, it was misinterpreted." Bush's response to the North Korean missile test was equally revealing. Under the old Bush Doctrine, defiance by a dictator like Kim Jong Il would have merited threats of punitive U.S. action--or at least a tongue lashing. Instead, the Administration has mainly been talking up multilateralism and downplaying Pyongyang's provocation. As much as anything, it's confirmation of what Princeton political scientist Gary J. Bass calls "doctrinal flameout." Put another way: cowboy diplomacy...
...practice makes perfect. So while the lone long-range Taepo Dong--2 rocket fired by North Korea last week sputtered, then splashed down into the Sea of Japan less than two minutes after its much publicized, strategically timed July 4 launch, there's little reason to think Kim Jong Il will be dissuaded by failure. With enough plutonium to make six to eight nuclear warheads and a cache of medium-range missiles, Kim is currently a menace to his Asian neighbors. With nukes and a fully functioning intercontinental missile, he can threaten the U.S. too--and the prospect of bullying...
...hard at work on the technology that would deliver them to American shores. North Korea is slowly but surely building its nuclear capability, making the world steadily less safe, and it's not clear what anyone can do about it without trying something entirely different. If Kim Jong Il intended to put the pressure back on Washington with his Fourth of July fireworks display, he surely succeeded. [The following descriptive text appears within A diagram] A Growing Threat The bulk of North Korea s arsenal consists of hundreds of short-range missiles that threaten South Korea and Japan. Kim Jong...
...hope of tipping the diplomatic balance in its favor. It has certainly drawn condemnation from all quarters, and squandered some of the advantage it enjoyed when Beijing and Seoul were becoming increasingly critical of the U.S. over the failure of the talks. But North Korean leader Kim Jong-il will certainly remember how his provoking of previous crises eventually brought diplomatic gains rather than punishment; North Korea's 1998 missile tests, for example, brought direct talks for Kim with South Korea and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Even the Bush administration, which rejected the Clinton-era approach as rewarding...