North Korea’s problematic history with nuclear weapons is not exactly a new thing. North Korea joined the Soviet Union's Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in 1956 and began sending

engineers and scientists to the USSR for basic nuclear training. An agreement was signed in 1959 that allowed for the cooperative use of nuclear energy, and the Soviet Union helped

North Korea build its Yongbyon Nuclear Research Center and other facilities.

By the late 1970s North Korea was heavy into mining its own uranium. It built a facility in the 1980s to process yellowcake and test chemical explosives, and other countries

were concerned. North Korea agreed to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in 1985, the Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in 1992, and

a safeguard agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 1993.

It was later discovered that North Korea had broken the 1994 agreement and had secretly been extracting plutonium from its fuel rods. The country withdrew from the NPT, and the

following year it reactivated the reactor in Yongbyon and declared that it had nuclear weapons.

There have been five North Korean nuclear tests in the past 11 years. There have also been numerous missile tests, including a recent attempt that did not go as planned. The blasts

from nuclear tests got increasingly stronger, with the first causing a 4.3 magnitude earthquake, and the fifth causing a 5.3 magnitude earthquake. According to The New York Times, North Korea launched

a missile in June of 2016 with the ability to reach American troops in Guam.

In 2012, North Korea said that it would end nuclear activity and missile tests in exchange for food aid from the United States. In April of the same year, a

rocket was launched from the capital city of Pyongyang.

It’s hard to know exactly what another country’s military has tucked away, but it’s no secret that North Korea has nuclear weapons and the means to make more. Experts believe

that by 2020 Pyongyang will have the skills to make nuclear warheads and enough nuclear material to make 100 more.

In an interview with BBC, Professor John Delury of the Yonsei University Graduate School of International Studies said that “above all else, North Korea's nuclear programme is about security

- it is, by their estimation, the only reliable guarantee of the country's basic sovereignty, of the Communist regime's control, and of the rule of Kim Jong-un.” Delury said that

until North Korea can find a “credible substitute to guarantee its security,” the program will continue to develop and there will be more tests.

The Obama administration has been criticized for its policy of “strategic patience” in regards to North Korea, but it proved to be effective. During the transition, Obama reportedly warned that

Trump that dealing with Kim Jong-un and North Korea would be a top foreign policy priority.

Going missile for missile is not how most of us want this conflict to end, but it is important to put things into context. According to the Arms Control Association,

the United States and Russia control more than 90 percent of the world’s 15,000 nuclear warheads.