With the recent controversial election of President Trump and the appalling events surrounding his recent months in office, people are becoming more terrified at what will come next of the world. One, concerning the heightened tensions between the U.S. and North Korea, has seen a lot of attention.

North Korea has not been one to shy away from the American media. Starting with former President George W. Bush, our American leaders have been dealing with this North Asian country time and again to prevent their efforts in successful missile launch tests. Trump only seems to make matters worse with his raging insults through Twitter, referencing the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as “Rocket Man” and U.S. plans to obliterate the country. It is devastating to know that we could be headed into another global war, and with a majority of Republicans agreeing on war with North Korea, sometimes it seems the government does not have America’s best interest.

Recent news from the Washington Post reports a poll conducted by Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. It states that 46% Republicans advocated a preemptive strike on North Korea. This is a slightly bigger percentage than the 30% of the Republican party who agreed with hitting the region only if the U.S. was hit first. So basically, the majority of politicians believe a surprise missile launch first is a smart idea. So much for the future of the United States.

This is an 18 point jump from the last poll that was collected in 2006 by Fox News, showing that 28% of Republicans agreed to continual use of preemptive strikes on enemy countries. Something seems to be rapidly changing the minds of these politicians to jump on the bandwagon and take the offensive first. Possibly, they may pose North Korea as a bigger threat than before.

It is funny how the temperament received within world leaders determines full scale events from whether they like each other or not, and how a bad experience could result in tension and violent conflict. I guess politicians are not so different from playground kids fighting for their turn on the swings.

What is possibly going to be achieved by nuking a country first other than a blown out catastrophic war? It sure will not help the common people trying to get by, and will only making their situation worser. In the bloodsheds of previous wars, the only thing a winning country got was bragging rights (maybe some land), while the citizens suffered, desperately waiting for food at a soup kitchen and high unemployment rates.

Yet with sanctions from the United Nations being imposed on North Korea that could possibly thwart their plans of a nuclear war, the United States should not be so terrified, right? Wrong.

Looking through the recent history of the past world wars, I found something rather interesting and supportive of the old adage “history repeats itself.” As World War II was coming to an end, the Treaty of Versailles involving three leaders from France, Britain, and the American president at the time Woodrow Wilson, adjoined together to negotiate peace. At this convention it was announced that Germany was to blame for starting the war and had to pay reparations for the damage made. This caused inflation and high unemployment rates in Germany since they were trying so hard to pay off billions of dollars they did not have. This also brought the uprising of a radical speaker, Adolf Hitler, whose plans were to avenge world domination from the treaty. From the consequences of that, it seemed to not work so well for the rest of the world. So maybe sanctions will only make matters worse in North Korea and give them the possible motivation for more military aggression.

Every reason for a war has an underlying problem, and as we know of, North Korea’s economy is not affluent, with it’s all time dependency on China for oil and other resources. Provoking war with an already aggressive leader and a failing economy will only give them more reasons to start conflict. The United States needs to be bigger than having World War III as an option.