The author explains why North Korea, though impoverished, nevertheless feels compelled to spend enormous amounts of its scarce resources on developing nuclear bombs and missiles capable of being delivered to the US, or at least to US allies. 
 To most Americans this seems slightly bizarre. But Paone's conclusion is that North Korea is quite rational - it simply wants to DETER the US from doing the same thing as it did during the Korea War: killing three to six million Koreans; burning down hundreds of villages, towns and cities; and leaving behind tens of thousands to live the rest of their lives without limbs or with napalm deformed bodies. We in the US may have only vague recollections of the 36,000 Americans killed or the 93,000 wounded in that war; but the Koreans vividly remember their millions of dead and the countless deformed survivors.
 Paone sets forth his explanation primarily through American military-oriented sources; the diaries of US Generals; over 200 photos of war scenes taken by US Army and US Air Force personnel; daily Press Releases from General Douglas MacArthur's Command in Tokyo and finally American newspaper accounts.