Click here to access article by Deirdre Griswold from Workers World.
Griswold only included the most obvious reasons why the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) insists on developing and maintaining a small arsenal of nuclear weapons. Violence is the only thing that Empire leaders respect--that's why they keep lecturing us, their protesting subjects (definition #1), about the necessity of nonviolence. That is also why the US spends half of its income--roughly equal to the rest of the nations combined--buying weapons and using and selling them to their allies all over the world. That is why DPRK develops these weapons.
The Koreans have not forgotten the terrible ravages inflicted on them by the US and associated accomplices during the Korean War, but unfortunately most Americans have in this "forgotten war". And now we know with the recently published exhaustive review of all the evidence in This Must Be the Place by Dave Chaddock that the US not only considered using atomic bombs on DPRK, but actually used bacteriological weapons on their population, a war crime--which is probably the real reason why this is a "forgotten war". (Read this, this, and this)
Besides all this gruesome evidence, one should know how the US stepped into Korea after WWII to support that most reactionary and Japanese colonial elements of Korean society after Korea had suffered many decades of Japanese colonial oppression. You can read all about this sordid history by reading two volumes of The Origins of the Korean War by Bruce Cumings. If you don't have time to read both, be sure to read volume 1. This book, more than any other single book that I read up until 2010, was a real "eye-opener". If you still don't have time to read this single book, then I recommend reading "North Korea and the United States: Will the Real Aggressor Please Stand Down?" by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers.