On Friday, the second, South Korea, Japan, and the United States announced they will be levying sanctions against North Korea. This is following an unprecedented recent streak of weapons tests by the North Korean government, some of which flew over and fell very near Japan. Recently, China and Russia blocked attempts by the United Nations to implement sanctions against North Korea, arguing that they should use more diplomatic tactics to avoid humanitarian harm. The sanctions raised by the US were against specific North Korean officials, freezing their American assets, although this is expected to not be very effective and will likely only serve as a symbolic gesture.
North Korea has been uncharacteristically aggressive as of late with their weapons tests. North Korea is infamous for extreme shows of power and aggressive behavior. However, it seems with the missiles landing and flying over Japan, the North Korean government is trying to send a very clear message that “this time is different”. Because of this, it is a little bit surprising to see the US and its allies taking such passive action to this threat, so late in the game; with the aforementioned North Korean missile that landed near Japan having been fired in mid november, and North Korea having been testing a staggering amount of missiles for about a month and half.
This conflict is an example of a liberal country attempting to deal with a threat from an offensive realist country. The United States and its allies, South Korea and Japan, are using sanctions in a way that is very common for liberal theory. They are using political pressure from the world, in the form of the United Nations, in order to convince a nation to act in a way more in line with their own national interests. In this case, I am surprised to see Russia taking the stance of encouraging diplomatic solutions, instead of using force, because that stance is typical of Liberal theory and Russia has recently shown itself to be firmly in the offensive realist camp.