The Day After, by Bill Keller

[CanKor Brain Trust member Hark Kroll alerted us to this opinion piece published in The New York Times on 29 April 2012. Op-Ed Columnist Bill Keller begins with the now familiar rehearsing of DPRK human rights violations, mentioning several books published recently, including CanKor Brain Trust member David Hawk's updated “The Hidden Gulag”. But the more interesting part of this article is contained at the end, where Keller reviews the questions posed by the "engagement camp" and the "regime-change camp", concluding that both are missing the most pertinent questions about what is to happen after an eventual collapse in North Korea. --CanKor]

Bill Keller (photo by Tony Cenicola, The New York Times)

THE one thing everyone knows about North Korea is that we know very little about North Korea, except that it is miserable, totalitarian, nuclear and erratic. It is the hermit kingdom, the dark side of the moon.

But thanks to many thousands of refugees who have reached freedom by way of a long underground railroad through China, we know a lot more now about the grim reality. We understand better how the government sustains its dreadful power, and where that power could be faltering. Among people who follow the country closely, there is fresh discussion of whether this most durable of monster-states could be nearing its end days, and what we should do about it.

In recent weeks the news spotlight has focused on the 29-year-old novice tyrant Kim Jong-un, performing his family’s time-tested repertoire of bellicose bluster. Like a lunatic waving an assault rifle as he dances on a high window ledge, Kim galvanizes our attention.

But the more interesting story is down below.

“Dual Disconnected Monologues”: NASA Expert James Oberg Visits DPRK Launch Site

[The following are two interviews with James Oberg, NBC "space consultant" and NASA Mission Control veteran. Both were conducted by Ed Flanagan, NBC News Producer, and published on World News on MSNBC.com. The first interview (Monday, 9 April 2012) carried the title NBC space expert on North Korea satellite launch: 'It's not a military missile ... but it's darn close', with the second (Wednesday, 11 April 2012) titled North Koreans desperate for Western approval of launch. --CanKor]

First Interview:

A close up view of North Korea’s Unha-3 rocket at the launch platform of the Tongchang-ri space center. (Photo by Pedro Ugarte, AFP - Getty Images)

When we learned that North Korea was planning on opening its tightly restricted Sohae Satellite Launching Center to foreign journalists for the first time, NBC News quickly decided we would need an expert eye to determine the accuracy and authenticity of Pyongyang’s claim that this latest rocket launch was for peaceful scientific purposes.

North Korea says it is planning to launch a weather observation satellite using a three-stage rocket during mid-April to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung. But the United States and South Korea say it is a test of a ballistic missile.

So NBC News invited James Oberg, our “Space Consultant,” to accompany us into North Korea to view the Kwanggmyongsong-1 satellite.

With a 22-year career as a space engineer in support of NASA’s spaceflight operations, Oberg has the experience and technical expertise to determine the veracity of North Korea’s claims about this mission.

NBC sat down with Oberg after visiting the Sohae Satellite Launch Center on Sunday to get his initial impressions of the facility, the mysterious satellite and the future of North Korea’s space program.

Q:  What are your first impressions from this visit to Sohae?

A: It was just amazing to be there, and the impression was that someone in the North Korean government made a very courageous decision to let us in.

US-DPRK Deal: Instant Reaction

Only a couple of months after his ascension, Kim Jong Un and Associates^TM have managed to wrangle a preliminary deal with the Americans.  In exchange for 240,000 tons of aid, the North Koreans have agreed to stop testing nukes and ballistic missiles, halt uranium enrichment, and allow the IAEA back into Yongbyon. Judging from what the 240,000 tons will do to North Korea’s food deficit, not too shabby. After all, the North Koreans haven’t exactly given up anything – they’ve just agreed to stop what they’ve been doing.

38 North: North Korea after Kim Jong Il: The Risks of Improvisation by Rudiger Frank

[From time to time CanKor alerts readers to papers published by our partner-site 38North. The following article is authored by CanKor Brain Trust member Rudiger Frank, Professor of East Asian Economy and Society at the University of Vienna. Please follow our link to this article on the 38North site. --CanKor]

Kim Jong Il’s death was announced less than three weeks ago. But the world is surprisingly quickly getting used to the new leadership in North Korea, as if there were no concerns left at all. To provide a counterweight to this amazingly complacent mood, and the many speculations about a stable North Korean future (including my own), I’d like to play devil’s advocate and ponder a relatively pessimistic scenario based on my reading of some developments that should be watched carefully.

We do have reason to believe that the current course of events related to succession in North Korea is more of the improvisation type than the outcome of a long-term strategy. In the end, it might indeed work and Kim Jong Un and the system will survive, but this is by no means to be taken for granted.

The End of the Beginning: Bringing About a Khrushchev Thaw in the DPRK

In the midst of Britain’s darkest hour, Winston Churchill famously remarked in 1942 that what the country faced was not “the end, it is not even the beginning of the end; but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

If there is anything to describe the events of what we have witnessed in the DPRK in the past week or so, Churchill’s words could not be closer to the truth. We seem to be at a bridge that has never been crossed in the history of the country, and no one is quite sure how long, or even how sturdy, this bridge actually is. The fact that this bridge is now in the horizon may also help some of us to rethink positions we have had in the past as well.

For many of us, from the perspective of observing North Korea from the “outside in,” the DPRK presents some unique and difficult challenges. It is important to note that it is in fact not even a fraction of the country that is responsible for the challenges that we are faced with; our quibble is with the people in Pyongyang who seem to hold the reins of power in that country.

With Kim Jong Il’s death, there has been a renewed interest in what we on the outside should be doing about those folks in Pyongyang we seem to have this quibble with. After all, we seem to be back at square one when it comes to dealing with the regime. Ten years of the Sunshine Policy brought very little in practical progress when it came to forcing the North Koreans to take off the proverbial Aesopian jacket. On the other hand, the last five years of hardline policies have produced equally dismal results.

It’s Definitely Not 1994

As you can see from the widespread attention that his death is getting from the media, Kim Jong Il was no tin pot dictator. His life and his death affected millions outside the country that he ruled, at least officially, for the past twenty years.

The big question that’s on everyone’s minds today is the big “what next?” To be frank, there’s really no way to tell. Kim Jong Un is an unknown quantity (supposedly the most we know about him is that he was partly educated in Switzerland, speaks passable German, and enjoys basketball) and there’s no way of telling who will come out of the emerging power struggle that will inevitably happen. Everyone’s favourite bet seems to be the Bowibu-related Jang Sung Taek; but in North Korea, all bets are really off.

The Survival of North Korea by Suk Hi Kim

[From the Nautilus Policy Forum comes the following summary of a new book by Suk Hi Kim, Editor of North Korean Review. Entitled "The Survival of North Korea: Essays on Strategy, Economics, and International Relations", the book interweaves threads of argument and evidence to reflect the complicated nature of the international conflict focused on and in Korea and the urgency of ending the standoff on the Peninsula to avoid what could easily escalate into a catastrophic, nuclear war. This summary provides an overview of the engagement options that the USA and its allies should consider as part of a long-term strategy to complement short-term efforts to address North Korea’s nuclear weapons capabilities. --CanKor.]

The Longevity of North Korea and Solutions to its Nuclear Standoff

In the late 2000s, North Korea faced its third wave of possible state collapse, a phenomenon largely rooted in Kim Jong-il’s poor health, an impending power transition to his son, Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s ongoing food shortages, and its failed currency and economic reforms. This latest speculation of North Korean collapse came from an array of intelligence analysts, Asian and American scholars, think tank specialists, and workers in relief organizations. [1] The first wave that predicted North Korea’s collapse occurred in the 1980s, when the North Korean economy spiraled downward as the country’s chief allies–the Soviet Union and China–discontinued new loans and demanded repayment of outstanding debts. [2] The second wave came in the mid-1990s, when the great North Korean famine claimed the lives of between 200,000 and 3,000,000 people. Since the end of the Cold War, most communist countries either collapsed or carried out significant economic reform except for North Korea. Why should we assume that North Korea, one of the survivors that did not implement economic reform, will continue to be an exception to the pattern of history and survive?

Pyeongchang… Pyongyang 2018?

If the wild stories of the folks who have visited the DPRK are any indicator, the North Koreans know how to throw a party. From sumptuous delicacy-filled meals to soju-soaked karaoke nights, the North Korean government likes to dispel the image to those brave enough to visit the country that the country has recently been down on its luck.

This reputation for hospitality is somewhat lost to the rest of the world, as years of WFP dependency and documented famine form a direct contradiction to these tales of hospitality.

So to those of us who have never had the chance to sup at Pyongyang’s table, it may come as a surprise that the North Koreans have expressed some willingness to co-host the Winter Olympics with recently-awarded hosts Pyeongchang.

Commemorating the 6.15 Inter-Korean Summit: A Time for the Future of Peace by Lim Dong-won and Paik Nak-chung

[Lim Dong-won is former ROK Minister of Unification. Paik Nak-chung is Professor Emeritus, Seoul National University. Both are Co-representatives of the Korea Peace Forum. This article was the opening speech for the 11th anniversary commemoration (11 June in Seoul) of the inter-Korean summit meeting that took place on 15 June 2000. Under the original title (“A Time for the Future of Peace: the 11th Anniversary of the 6.15 Inter-Korean Summit”) it appeared in the Northeast Asia Peace and Security Network (NAPSNet), a publication of the Nautilus Institute. --CanKor.]

As we welcome the 11th Anniversary of the 6.15 inter-Korean summit, we increasingly realize how important the spirit and agreements of 6.15 are in times of regressing inter-Korean relations. The various North and South Korean interactions that extended from the 6.15 agreement have come to a standstill, resulting in heightened tension and anxiety. Only disappointments remain in place of cooperation and exchange. Slander and defamation prevail, and instead of exchanging dialogue, we now exchange bullets. The Cold War, which we aimed to curtail through the 6.15 agreement, has now returned and threatens our peace and stability.

Preparing for Change in North Korea: Shifting Out of Neutral by Michael J. Mazarr

[This paper by Michael J. Mazarr & the Study Group on North Korean Future comes in the Korea Economic Institute (KEI) Academic Paper Series Volume 6, Number 3 of April 2011. The study was undertaken to assess possible futures for the North Korean regime and the Korean peninsula that could affect U.S. and regional interests, and to consider which U.S. and regional strategies and policy actions could both prepare for possible outcomes and shape those outcomes to better serve U.S. Interests. Below we give you first a review of the document by Chris Nelson, and then the main titles of the recommendations of the report. To read the full report, click on the link at the bottom. --CanKor.]

CHRIS NELSON REVIEW OF THE REPORT:

The Mazarr team’s report is purely “personal” in the sense that it’s not official USG or NDU, but given the make-up of the group, including US and allied military and itel folks, it’s a remarkably broadly cast net of analysis of current and future problems, with some frank, tough-minded recommendations which run directly counter to current USG policy.

Sample key finding: the group disagrees with the apparent underlying basis for all US policy, that at some point the DPRK will surrender its nuclear weapons in return for the right mix of benefits and inducements. In fact, as the group knows, no senior US policy-maker any longer suffers from such a delusion.