The United States has taken nuclear dismantling initiatives against North Korea with good intentions, but with poor results.

In 1994, the United States entered an agreement with North Korea in order to suspend nuclear development in the communist nation. However, in 2002, eight years later, the Washington-Pyongyang agreement fell through and North Korea began to build its first nuclear reactor in the city of Pyongyang.

The reactor in Pyongyang has lead to the creation of North Korea’s first nuclear weapon, which allegedly has a uranium core. A bomb with a uranium core is harder to detect than one with a plutonium core, according to United Nations nuclear analysts.

Even with this theory in mind, satellite photos taken of the reactor have shown that it has the capability to produce weapons-grade plutonium because of the functions of the nuclear reactor. Despite the requests that North Korea must shut down the reactor in order to comply with the 1994 agreement, Kim Jong Il, the communist leader of North Korea, contends that his nation needs the reactor for power.

The United States, China, Russia, and Japan have proposed a plan to provide North Korea with a “light-water” reactor as of Sept. 19. A light water reactor makes it far more difficult to harness radioactivity for the purposes of creating weapons. The four nations will only discuss the proposition with North Korea if the nation “rejoins the global Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and allows inspections,” according to U.S. representatives.

Even with the threat of losing its nuclear capability, the North continues to boast that it has the ability to compete and even defeat the United States in a battle of nuclear warfare. Details regarding this “self defense deterrent” have not been revealed, but one should wonder where the technology for both the development of the nuclear weapons and the defense system may have come from.

Many people would point the finger at the Middle Eastern nation of Pakistan, namely Abdul Qadeer Khan, the man that created Pakistan’s atomic weapons program. U.S. investigators, however, have not been able to question Khan about this despite him being under house arrest.

The Pakistani government denies any claims of still being affiliated with North Korea. When it is all said and done, the four nations (U.S., China, Russia, and Japan) should impose the idea of the “light-water” reactor upon North Korea.

The main objective should be neutralizing the nuclear program entirely and preventing any sort of nuclear retaliation.

The threat from North Korea is a formidable one, one that deserves, and is receiving, a global response from some of the most prominent nations.

The road to dismantling North Korea’s nuclear development is a long and difficult one.