Friedman: In an op-ed in 2013 in the Los Angeles Times, you wrote, South Africa has illustrated that long-term security can be far better assured by the abrogation of nuclear weapons than by their retention. It seems that Kim Jong Un of North Korea has, at least according to his propaganda, learned the opposite lesson: that if you’re [Libya’s Muammar] Qaddafi or Saddam [Hussein in Iraq] and you give up your [pursuit of] nuclear weapons, you reduce your security [and bring about your demise at the hands of the U.S. and its allies]. Or if you’re Ukraine and you sign up to the Budapest Memorandum, and then Russia two decades later invades you, that you’ve actually given up security by relinquishing nuclear weapons.
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About Kim Jong-un
Kim Jong-un was leader of north korea since 2011. Kim Jong Un is a North Korean politician who is the general secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) and the president of the State Affairs Commission. A member of the Kim family, he is the third supreme leader and dictator of North Korea, as well as the third son of Kim Jong Il, his predecessor as supreme leader, and a grandson of Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea. Read more on Wikipedia →