When North Korea declared itself a nuclear power Thursday, diplomatic alarms sounded across China, Russia, Japan, South Korea and the United States.
The revelation not only heightens foreign relations tensions with the United States, but also opens the door for terrorists to acquire nuclear devices, according to UW-Madison political science Professor Ed Friedman.
\North Korea said it is not going to do anything until it has reassurance from the U.S. that the U.S. will not attack them,"" said Friedman. ""The danger here is not that [North Korea] is going to launch nuclear weapons at the U.S. or Japan. If they did, it would be suicide.""
Friedman added the danger is that since North Korea is selling nuclear weapons to terrorists, the situation may soon lose control.
U.S. intelligence officials have estimated North Korea has at least two nuclear devices and has reprocessed 8,000 spent fuel rods into plutonium, enough to possibly make six more, according to The Washington Post.
This announcement comes at a critical period for the United States, since the Bush administration is currently active in Iraq.
Jeremi Suri, UW-Madison history professor, said the situation arose because North Korea recognized the position the Bush administration is in.
With the current state of North Korea's economy, it sees this as a moment to put maximum pressure on the U.S.
""Korea is a cash-poor economy in a horrible situation,"" Suri said. ""One of the few things they have to export is their military technology.""
The North Korean economy does not provide any economic information to the rest of the world, according to UW-Madison international economics Professor Stephen Malpezzi.
""One of the problems in North Korea,"" said Malpezzi, ""is that they release almost no data on their economy. Our data on their [economic situation] is just a guess.""
Malpezzi added North Korea's estimated gross domestic product per capita is approximately 40 times less than that of the United States.
""[North Korea] in essence wants the U.S. to help them stay alive,"" Suri said. ""On the other hand, we don't want to see them collapse. If we give them what they want, we'd be financing a tyrant, which is what makes this situation so difficult.""
Professor Suri added that since the six-power talks are not making much progress, a combination of direct talks between the United States and North Korea would be much better.
""I'd like to see an agreement hammered out within the six-power framework,"" said Suri, ""but I think the U.S. should be behind the scenes using a carrot-and-stick routine for anything to work.\
