33. Why South Koreans Aren't Worried About Nuclear War

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/04/why-south-koreans-arent-worried-about-nuclear-war/274947/

On April 12th, Donald Kirk wrote an article about the South Koreans’ thoughts and feelings towards the North Korean threats. Kirk opens with a reaction regarding the issue given by a former South Korean finance minister saying that he “just grinned when pressed on whether the rhetoric from the North was having any impact.” The author says that the people are definitely aware of the threats since the media divulges them every day, though they seem to be indifferent towards them since in the past, the North Koreans have done things similar to these but didn’t take any drastic measure. From past events, the South Koreans do not think they their enemy will do anything and even if they do, the U.S. and the U.N. will respond. And since the South Koreans are “living in a dream world of peace and prosperity, [they] are deaf to noises that suggest the dream could turn into a nightmare.”

The purpose of the author in writing this article is to inform his readers about why the South Koreans don’t seem to be worried about North Korea’s threats. He refutes a possible idea that they aren’t aware of all the dangers that could happen by saying that the media talks about it all the time. An appeal to logic is used to express the reason for their calm attitude and the author refers to past events to support his claim. He compares what the North Koreans have done in the past and what they are currently doing to show how it is unlikely that they would launch any nuclear missile. The only worry is that they could launch in the Monday celebrating the birth of Kim Il-Sung, but if they do launch, the South Koreans are assured that the U.S. will retaliate.