As concerns grow that North Korea's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs are nearing the point of becoming an unacceptably dire threat to international peace and security, the United Nations, acting with unprecedented collective resolve, has imposed potentially suffocating international economic sanctions on North Korea. These sanctions are bolstered by even more stringent measures imposed unilaterally by the United States. The international community has not in recent memory come together in this way to seek to cut a country off from nearly all trade and investment. This will be a test of the effectiveness of economic sanctions in achieving a nonmilitary solution to what is arguably the most significant military threat impacting global interests since the end of the Cold War.

With the rise of terrorist threats emanating from outside the territory of the United States and simultaneous advancements in armed drone technology, the United States began a rapidly escalating lethal drone program in the years after 9/11. While the first U.S. drone strike occurred in Yemen in 2002 during the George W. Bush administration, President Barack Obama dramatically increased the number of drone strikes during his first term.