Graph theory and Social Networks to analyse US Sanctions against North Korea
The linked article discusses the recent sanctions proposed by the United States against North Korea, regarding the refusal of North Korea to disband its nuclear arms program. In particular, the U.S. is proposing an oil ban and a freeze on Kim Jong Un’s assets to the United Nations Security council. While many countries are in favour of this, most notably Japan and South Korea, China and Russia are vociferously opposing the sanctions, given their relations to the country not only in politics, but also trade. Of course, this set of relations lends itself naturally to a graph theory/social network analysis of the situation. What makes this more interesting is the fact that President Trump has threatened to cut off trade with countries that continue to trade with North Korea – a dangerous threat, which could backfire, as China is the US’s biggest trade partner. But this puts China (among other nations that trade with both NK and the US: India, the Philippines, Thailand) in a precarious position, as they are also North Korea’s biggest trade partner, with 85% of NK’s imports being from China (http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/prk/#Origins).
This relates to the discussion in class about social networks and game theory – in particular, structural balance theory. The precarious nature of this trade interaction amidst the looming threat of global thermonuclear war will require a number of countries to change their trade stances and relations with others and, in essence, would require an eventual forming of 2 separate ‘sets’, as discussed in class, with mutual friendship (positive trade/political relations) within each set, and mutual animosity between the sets. In my opinion, this would occur due to the structural balance theory, which dictates that in any 3 given nodes in a network, either exactly one or all 3 relations must be positive. The relations would change because the United States is threatening to give an ultimatum to change ties with countries which persist on trading with North Korea, and as a result the structural balance of some of the networks that the US has formed will become imbalanced (e.g. Imagine the cause of the upset: the NK-China-US triad. In terms of trade, this is a +:+:- relationship, where NK-US is the – link. This violates the structural balance theory, and as the theory dictates, must quickly change either NK-US into a positive, which is unlikely, or China-US into a negative, or China-NK to a negative.). These changes will cause a ‘domino effect’ of instability in different trade and political ties across the world, forcing relations to be changed, and sides to be taken.