U.S. food aid to North Korea: strategic and humanitarian rationale

North Korea is one of the world's most centrally planned and isolated economies (The World Fact Book). As a result of years of underinvestment and spare parts shortages, its industrial capital stock is considered to be beyond repair and its economy is in chaos, faces desperate economic conditions. Industrial and power output have eroded and the nation has suffered its tenth year of food shortages because of a lack of arable land, collective farming, weather-related problems, and chronic shortages of fertilizer and fuel. Large-scale military spending is blamed for consuming resources needed for investment and civilian consumption. Led by dictator Kim Jong Il, and hailing a million-man army, the North is believed by the U.S. To have at least one nuclear weapon, an extensive chemical weapons stockpile and a biological arsenal (Bray, 2003).

Despite its adversarial relationship with North Korea, the U.S. is its largest supplier of food aid (Cohen, 2002). Since 1995, the U.S. has provided more than $500 million in food and other commodities to this country or up to 350,000 metric tons of food each year. However, in 2002 the U.S. donated less -- 153,000 metric tons -- as have other donors. This decline is in part due to the competing demands of Afghanistan. There are three main reasons why the U.S. has helped to shore up the North Korean regime (Cohen, 2002). First, U.S. food aid has made it easier to engage the North Koreans in talks on military-strategic issues.