North Korea: ‘A Transnational Task’

Following North Korea’s artillery attack on South Korea, the United States quickly vowed a “measured and unified” response with major world powers, including China. The message from the U.S. was, perhaps, a sign of the times.

“We live in a networked world,” Anne-Marie Slaughter wrote last year in Foreign Affairs. “War is networked,” she continued. “Diplomacy is networked: managing international crises … requires mobilizing international networks of public and private actors.”

Nearly two decades ago, Peter Drucker foretold of a time when governments would need to work together to deal with major issues, including the health of the world economy and the environment. “I think you will see the same thing happening with respect to North Korea and terrorism,” Drucker said in a prescient speech to the Economic Club of Washington in 1991. “That’s a transnational task.”

What do you think: Will unified world pressure be enough to cause North Korea to stand down in the short term—and can it possibly move that nation in a new direction in the longer term?