It was Libya in 2011 — the uprising against Col. Moammar Gadhafi and the subsequent shocking scenes of a bloodied dictator reduced to waiting on his fate in a dusty street just west of Sirte — that reinforced North Korea's long-held belief that the only way to truly deter an outside attack would be to maintain and develop its own nuclear weapons program.
Indeed, in March 2011, a North Korean spokesperson announced to the world the lessons that Kim's regime had learned. "It has been shown to the corners of the earth that Libya's giving up its nuclear arms ... was used as an invasion tactic to disarm the country by sugar-coating it with words like 'the guaranteeing of security' and the 'bettering of relations.' Having one's own strength," the official continued, "was the only way to keep the peace."
Whether one is to agree with the international intervention in Libya or not, it is true that Gadhafi, the only ever international leader to give up his nuclear weapons program, was betrayed. He had renounced his weapons program, cooperated on Lockerbie, and handed over to the West its files on al-Qaida and the IRA. Political, economic and cultural relations had developed but when the rebel-led uprising arose, a Western military coalition provided the support to remove him.