On October 9th, 2006, North Korea tested a nuclear bomb and joined the nations of the world who possess them. This alarmed many countries and led to the UN approving sanctions. The U.S. wanted to use military force to enforce the sanctions but Japan and the other members of the U.N. Security Council said no. The sanctions stop North Korea from buying more military goods, seize money from North Korean military companies abroad and ask that North Korea return to the six-party talks where, starting in 2003, everybody had agreed that North Korea would stop developing nuclear weapons and missile technology in return for economic cooperation and aid from the other countries.
  On the one hand, North Korea is known to be militarily aggressive and do unpredictable things, so using strong sanctions and even military force may seem like the only way to avoid disaster in case they actually are planning to use their new weapons. Their record for human rights violations domestically also creates distrust in the international community.
  On the other hand, North Korea's real enemy is poverty and more sanctions can only make the situation worse and therefore unstable. Also, other countries like Pakistan and India have recently joined the nuclear weapons club without protest from the developed countries so why can't North Korea? Furthermore, North Korea says that one reason it didn't keep its promises of the six-party talks is that the other countries didn't keep their promises either. Japan promised to normalize relations with North Korea but didn't, and the U.S. started new sanctions soon after the talks ended. Finally, if the long-term goal for North Korea is harmony with the rest of the world, development, and some day even reunification with the South, how does isolating them even more with sanctions help?