Lithuanian Annual Strategic Review

This article presents an interpretation of the US capacity to force North Korea to abandon the development of nuclear weapons, based on the analysis of the conventional balance between the U.S. and North Korea. It is also an attempt to evaluate the impact of the US military transformation on defence policy decisions of the potential opponents of the US. The first (theoretical) part of the article presents the assumptions of theoretical interpretation as well as the fundamentals of evaluating the conventional balance between the US and North Korea. The second part of the article highlights the key moments of the US and the international community’s so far unsuccessful attempts to force North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons and explains the reasons for such unsuccessful policy. The third part of this paper analyzes the conventional balance between the US and North Korea, taking into account the conventional forces of those countries, their longrange conventional strike programmes as well as the missile defence programmes – this analysis presupposes the failure of the US to prevent North Korea from nuclear weapon development.