North Korea has its problems, granted. My attempt here is to broach a side less understood: that the U.S. isn’t really improving the Korean situation, and never has been. My time in the military, as well as well as time spent speaking with my family about the issue, has shown me this.

The two Koreas are currently in a state of cease-fire; they are still technically at war. Seoul—South Korea’s capital—sits in comfortable range of North Korean artillery. Armed men are pointing firearms at each other along the entire gamut of the 155-mile Armistice Line at this very moment. Male South Korean citizens have dedicated their two years of mandatory service to this on a rotational basis since 1953 in order to have every foot of the line covered.

Aside from its adamant ideology, North Korea’s fundamental interests do not deviate much from the norm. It wants national security and economic growth via international relationships; it wants to eat and survive. It has expressed the desire to improve the situation to a holistic pacification with the South, perhaps even a reunification. It has suggested and programmed peace talks on multiple occasions. Its obstacle has been always the United States. A friendly, economically cooperative U.S. is what North Korea wants, but that will never happen.

The main focus for the U.S. in the region has been to contain communist nations. Immediately after the armistice, the Eisenhower administration adopted the policy of nuclear counterstrike in the event of the next North Korean offensive. It secretly deployed nuclear weapons to its bases in South Korea as a part of its broader scheme to take a vantage point over mainly China and the Soviet Union, thereby being the first to break the armistice agreement.

The objective has carried over to today. The U.S. wants to continuously hold China in check as a burgeoning world power. Upon belatedly discovering the violation in 1975, the startled North began conceiving its nuclear program as a countermeasure.

North Korea knows it can’t hope to win a fight against the U.S. or South Korea. It is weak, one of the poorest countries in the world. The old alliances have their own interests. Virtually alone and destitute, North Korea turns naturally to what can resolve its energy demand and scare even the U.S. at a relatively low cost—nuclear development. It ultimately wants the U.S. out of Korea and wants to talk peace with just the South. Though right now much of the nuclear presence has been withdrawn from South Korea, for the North the U.S. has been nothing more than a constant imperialist threat.

The maintenance of Korean tension is both lucrative and politically important for the U.S. The U.S. isn’t sure whether a peacefully reunified Korea would remain as strong an ally and side with China or declare neutrality, while South Korea is currently a certain and expedient outpost at China’s nose. South Korea also purchases arms from the U.S., once buying outdated F-15 fighter jets which helped salvage the then foundering Boeing Corporation. The U.S. has cyclically loosened and tightened the noose, taking mild actions when North Korea made provocative offensives (the last of which was the bombardment of a South Korean island during my time in the military in November 2010) and threatening it with sanctions and large-scale attacks at other times.

The harder the U.S. corners North Korea, the more desperate North Korea becomes. It already has so little to lose in comparison. The militant government has a suicidal war planned as the ultimate measure, but even they don’t wish it. Many friends and cousins of mine will be the first killed in their Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) posts. Seoul will be pulverized—it can be now or at any moment—along with much development jam-packed in the small, dense country roughly the size of Kentucky. We may win, but to no avail. The U.S. may sacrifice some soldiers and boost its military industrial complex. Not a single acre of American soil is likely to take damage.

The major confrontational powers in the region are North Korea and the United States. China and South Korea are in periphery. Suiting its own interests, the U.S. has few reasons to resolve the tension quickly and peacefully. “Defense of democracy” and “humanitarianism” are perfect excuses. South Korea is wedged in an iffy position. It can’t flat-out trust the North to be friendly with the U.S. gone or come to bad terms with the powerful U.S. Meanwhile, it is well aware of the U.S. hand moving the Korean pieces on the board and placing South Korea in potential danger. Many South Koreans want the U.S. out, too, but find it realistically difficult to definitively argue that.

And finally, below the geopolitical poker, it is the poor citizens of North Korea who voicelessly starve to death. It pains me to imagine or learn about these people who would have been my brothers and sisters just half a century ago, who are as close as a few miles over the DMZ from me and yet as far away as anyone can be from help. The North Korean government has its blames to take for its own mountain of problems. I don’t like the regime, but I cringe whenever they seem to be cast as the scapegoat or as the sole monstrous presence in the region. Kim Jong-Il died, but the problems ran deeper than him.