Letters: Coping with North Korea

Re “North Korea raises global alarm,” April 3

The United States, in its role as world policeman, is constantly on the brink of conflict. Now we face the possibility of another war—this one nuclear.

It’s argued that nuclear arsenals act only as a deterrent; in other words, nukes will never be used. But with a belligerent North Korea potentially facing the U.S., the only nation to have ever dropped an atomic bomb in a war, nuclear conflict looms as ominously as ever.

We have a president who won the Nobel Peace Prize and in his 2008 campaign expressed willingness to talk to our enemies. President Obama ought to play the part and prevent yet another war.

Andy K. Liberman

Santa Monica

U.S. policy for more than six decades has relied on the least reliable of entities: the military, whether on the Korean Peninsula, in Vietnam or elsewhere. It was deemed cost effective to finance surrogates in perceived backwater locations while confronting and surrounding the Soviet Union. That policy has proved to be unsound.

So now we’re concerned that kicking the can down the street has put us into a cul de sac? North Korea has concluded it helps to have its own “stick” and that it need not talk “softly.” Direct talks should have taken place decades ago — and begun with an acceptance that they were not going to do it “our way.”

F. Daniel Gray

Los Angeles

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is Western educated. He has seen the wealth of modern societies and the poverty of North Korea. The amount of aid needed to modernize his country is more than North Korea can muster and more than anyone will provide.

Except that provided by the United States after victory in war.

Stefen Malone

West Hollywood

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