SC, With North Korea, the US actually gave them their light water reactors back in the early 1990s (!) The official BS rationale given at the time was that by giving them the light water type, they would be less likely to develop heavy water reactors (from which it is easier to produce a nuclear weapon). Pakistan was given their reactors also.
But why would the US want a nuclear armed North Korea? Because with the Cold War ending, Japan would have much less reason to remain under the protection of the US nuclear umbrella. Instead, Japan would naturally tend to gravitate toward closer relationships with China and the rest of Asia, and the US would lose its influence in the Pacific Rim. So the US needed to create a new regional threat near Japan.
For years, every time Japan and China start to form closer ties, as if on cue, North Korea explodes another nuke or lobs another missile into the Sea of Japan, causing Japan to come scuttling back to the protection of the US. It's happened so many times that some believed that the North Korean leader was actually working for the US Deep State.
But the problem with creating and arming an 'enemy' for geostrategic purposes is that you can eventually lose control of that 'enemy'. That's what happened to the British Empire when they financed the Russian Revolution to remove the Czar, and eventually ended up with a bigger problem in Stalin. Then they funded the rise of Hitler in hopes he would attack Stalin and both would be destroyed, but of course that backfired. Similarly, the US Deep State originally installed both the Shah of Iran and Saddam Hussein in Iraq, but both had to eventually be removed.
With North Korea, the US gave them their nuke capability by technology transfers and by providing them nuclear power reactors back in the early 1990s. The US benefited all those years from the 'North Korean threat' since it kept Japan as a US protectorate, but now North Korea has become a bonafide threat to the US Deep State and must be neutralized.
