North Korea-US Reciprocal Action Pattern in the Shifting International System

The new chapter of crisis in the Korean Peninsula started about the beginning of the American new government and North Korea's ballistic missile test in February 2017. The test was immediately met with the American President Donald Trump's indignant reaction and the tensions reached worrying levels which also engaged different political actors such as China, Russia, South Korea and Japan. The important point we should keep in mind about the behavior of political units is that these behaviors are influenced by diverse factors inside the international system structure. One of these factors is the position and prestige of the political actors. The structure is composed of a series of behaviors or reciprocal actions of the political actors. What the reactor understands from the others' actions dictates its behavior. The behaviors are the signals that the political actors send in different situations and other actors interpret and perceive them differently. The pattern of recent US-North Korea reciprocal actions has been the subject of many questions including "what role has the international system played under these circumstances?" The researcher's hypothesis is that "North Korea's action is based on a wrong perception of the behavior or signals America is sending as the main actor of the international system". This hypothesis can perfectly explain North Korea's behavioral pattern in recent crisis. Is this claim well-grounded that North Korea has interpreted America's previous selfcontrol as weakness, or we should assume that North Korea interpreted Trump's own behavior as a signal of vulnerability and weakness? This article attempts at explaining America and North Korea's behavior and reciprocal actions based on this variable.