North Korea’s been the topic on the tip of everybody’s tongues this past month or so. For weeks now we’ve been subject to a daily stream of updates on Kim Jong-un’s latest nuclear threat. This conflict between nations has many people fearing for their lives, for their families, and for their country. As recent history has shown us, the United States has become the seeming prime target of foreign intimidation and terrorism. This has left many of us wondering why this has become the uneasy norm. The answer isn’t an easy one to pin down.

The U.S government and its people often argue that it’s because of the country’s freedom, social values, modernism, or other like reasons. While these characteristics of our country could be some of the causes of terrorism, the main reason behind all the suffering is U.S foreign policy. The United States has a history of overthrowing governments, assassinating foreign leaders, depleting uranium, promoting torture, and a number of other things. All of this has caused several groups of people to want to rise up against our country, and to some extent, their motivations can be understood. While their violent actions can’t be justified, it’s clear that they’ve been done wrong by the U.S.

In the case of North Korea, the conflict stems back as far as 1950, at the beginning of the Korean War. From a technical standpoint, the Korean War never really ended. American Lieutenant General William Harrison Jr. and North Korean General Nam II signed the Korean Armistice Agreement on July 27th, 1953, putting a stop to “all acts of armed force on Korea’s side until both parties were able to find a “final peaceful settlement.” This “peaceful settlement” was never reached. Maybe Kim Jong-un’s efforts are all in an attempt to finally end the war, or it could all be nothing more than intimidation by a small country that could just be afraid of being taken over. We can only hope.