Case Study: Korea and Neorealist View

case study: As a case study in international politics, what North Korea achieved is remarkable, according to The Japan Times. The ancient and influential Greek historian Thucydides is celebrated for the concise wisdom of his observation that the strong do what they will, and the weak suffer what they must, a summary of the neorealist view of international politics. ; In this case the power gap between the strong United States and weak North Korea was immense. While negotiations will continue, it is appropriate to raise the question of how this situation came about. The U.S. economy was roughly 100 times the size of North Korea's, and the U.S. also boasted the world's most capable conventional military forces plus a nuclear arsenal that could have incinerated every North Korean city. Other states have tried and failed to get nuclear weapons over U.S. objections. Yet this comparatively small country managed, despite the superpower's awareness and opposition, to acquire a capability that made itself exponentially more potentially dangerous to the superpower. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.