I think you are right in some of your notions, but conceptually you have no idea why their is much nervousness over this.

Its simple common sense. If Australia was doing the nuclear weapons thing do you think it would recive the same international outcry? Hardly.

You have a rougue state with a history of baffling decissions that have placed their nation in much dissaray. An irresponsible government with different fundamental beliefs and a bee in their bonnet is a recipe for disaster when nuclear capabilities are obtained.

North Korea have proven they have acted on impulse many times in the last 2 regimes, so why allow them the most powerful and destructuve weapons on earth and risk them making off the cuff decisions?

People with your philosophy forget we are not all level headed, similar thinking, rational people. You have a dictator who solely makes the decisions and is already making threats of war after recieving just political pressure at this point.

I hope you take a good hard look at the situation again and think of it as the US and most of the world doing us a favour by confronting the issue now.

My fullest compliments on a very interesting, well balanced and accurate article which doesn't unthinkingly jump on the "lets destroy another sovereign state" bandwagon as so many other stories have done of late. look at the most powerful countries today the official nuclear club members are all on the list and not just because it takes money and brains to build nukes. Military capability and political clout go hand in hand because war is the ultimate expression of politics and always a factor in international negotiations. Countries without any serious muscle to back their demands can be safely ignored.

Ultimately might is right. You need only look at America to see this is true. Iraq had a weak military force and was easily defeated but N.Korea has always been very strong in this regard. America would never seriously consider invading them after the last embarassing attempt showed this to be so. A nuclear N.Korea is unassailable.

The Non-Proliferation Treaty was never going to work. It ignores the fundamental make up of human beings. Every country wants to be able to stand on its own two feet and not be dictated to by others. In a world of haves and have nots the nuclear club has too much power over the rest of us. Proliferation was always going to continue. Treaties are just paper. Secret programs are certainly going on in many more countries than those who have been caught out or admitted their research.

The world will never be free of nukes. That is a utopian fantasy. In the valley of the blind the one eyed man is king. In a nuclear free world any country with hidden nukes would rule supreme. At risk of sounding a wacko we should remember that this universe is probably inhabited by other intelligent life and to disarm ourselves of our most advanced weaponry could in fact be the dumbest move we ever make.

If Kim Jong-Il is not a complete madman, he can’t be far from it. Last week, I was in Peace Park at Hiroshima being reminded of the hideous damage the A-bomb – a mere fire cracker compared with its nuclear upgrade – did to human beings.

Anyone, Korean, Iranian or Western, who deals with nuclear weapons and nuclear power, must be considered deranged. And calling the US hypocritical, when it is still the only Western nation capable of protecting us from less scrupulous non-Western countries and cultures is plain stupid. The West also has the right to self-preservation, and it does not pose the threat to the rest of the world Bagaric claims. And, if self-preservation is OK for Korea etc, why the hell should we be worried about their ‘rights’ to the detriment of our own?

As Bagaric says, people are not divided into good and evil (we can hardly blame the starving Koreans for their country’s nuclear lunacy) but anyone who thinks that there is no difference between Kim Jong-Il and George Bush or John Howard has really lost touch with reality.

The basic thrust of Mirko Bagaric 's article makes sense. George W.Bush has managed to spread the prevailing idea of evil Korea versus good U.S.A. People worldwide, and especially in the US, are waking up to the double standards of US foreign policy. The doctrine of pre-emptive strike is pretty mich discredited now.
The 1994 agreed framework between the US and Korea was never implemented, because the new Bush administration in 2001 reassessed the policy, and then came out with the "axis of evil" statement.
No wonder Kim Jong-il followed his confrontational path on nuclear weapons development.
No, Australia should not "start towing the US line" or even "toeing it". the US should not "illicit" or even "elicit" the support of the Security Council and European nations. Diplomacy is the only sane way to go, and the aggressive posture of the Bush administration is looking sillier every day. Christina Macphseron www.antinuclear.net

To begin, "No nuclear power has ever had its territorial sovereignty invaded by another country." The Falklands, need I say more. Secondly, and more importantly: what a load of garbage.

Who honestly believes good and evil can be placed on a binary scale? Also, how can the author use history to put the actions of the US in context. You cannot compare actions in Nicaragua, Vietnam, Guatemala, Cambodia, Korea, Grenada, Afghanistan and especially Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Why not include the American Revolution or the American/Spanish war. A state is not a living thing. Governments change, people die and policies become irrelevant.

Present administrations cannot be blamed for past events. You can bet the people of the former South Vietnam envy the people of South Korea, and wish the Americans won the war.

The US has had a few problems with human rights abuses, G Bay, etc. As have all countries. Kim Jong-Il ostracises the international community, kidnaps foreign citizens, starves, tortures and murders its citizens, and earns hard currency through counterfeiting and smuggling. The simple fact is, no country, ever, will be able to take the absolute moral high ground, and every country, always, will act in its own self interest. Failure to do so would be in breach of the social contract with its citizens

In the author’s blind demonisation of the US, he has sided with some of the worst dictators in power. Of course it is rational for NK to have nuclear weapons. Of course it is rational for other countries to wish to remove them. North Korea and Iran are dangerous states. If one of my neighbours who repeatedly called for my destruction, and supported others with the same ideals, suddenly gained possession of a firearm, I would be justified in trying to remove it. Likewise, if my neighbour was an unpredictable person, who had a history of harming their family, I would be justified in doing the same thing. At the end of the day, NK and Iran are dangerous states, everything that can be done to limit the damage they can do should be done, in this respect, the aims of the US are in line with out own.

As for the demobilisation of all nuclear weapons, and world peace: It is a nice goal, but completely impossible. Any game theorist will tell you of the marvellous incentives to cheat in proliferation, the result of which would be unimaginable if the only states left with weapons are the ones most likely to cheat, like Iran and North Korea. Like it or not, nuclear weapons in the hands of the Security Council leads to a global balance of power and encourages peace. Nuclear weapons in the hands of dictatorships and terrorist groups are a frightening, and real, prospect