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.

NK Blows Off Leap Day Deal With Missile Ploy, by Chris Nelson

Test firing of an Unha-2 missile (photo by KCNA)

[Chris Nelson of the Nelson Report gathered a number of reactions from North Korea experts on what seems to be an about-face by the DPRK on an agreement made 29 February 2012 for a moratorium on missile tests. What exactly happened here? There are a number of theories with disturbing implications. Has the young Kim Jong Un just made his first mistake in international relations? Is this the result of two factions in the ruling elite working at cross-purposes? Was the fledgling leader unclear that a satellite launch bears a striking resemblance to a ballistic missile test? What will this mean for US AID food assistance deal. If the food part of the Leap Day deal is scuttled as a result of the satellite launch announcement, can the US Administration continue to claim that humanitarian assistance is unrelated to strategic and military issues? These and other questions are mulled over by a group of Chris Nelson’s “loyal readers” in Friday’s Nelson Report (16 March 2012), reprinted here by permission. –CanKor]

In barely 24 hours, the situation with N. Korea has gone from skeptical but hopeful to downright furious…and deeply worried a crisis confrontation is coming soon.

The Obama Administration denounced the move as “highly provocative…in direct violation of UN Security Council Resolutions…poses a threat to regional security and would also be inconsistent with North Korea’s recent undertaking to refrain from long-range missile launches.”

The sense of crisis deepened as informed sources learned of the “back story” leading up to Pyongyang’s declaration last night it planned to celebrate the 100th anniversary of founder Kim Il Sung’s birth with a satellite launch on April 15…a missile launch in clear, explicit violation of existing UN resolutions supported by China and the other 6 Party Talks participants.

Books: “Witness To Transformation” by Stephen Haggard and Marcus Noland

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WITNESS TO TRANSFORMATION: Refugee Insights into North Korea, by Stephen Haggard and Marcus Noland. Washington DC: Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2011. 182 pp. US$23.95 paperback. ISBN 978-0-88132-438-9. This book review was written by CanKor Human Factor Editor Jack Kim.

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In a former life as a management consultant, there was one lesson my superiors drilled into me: good decisions were all about data, data, and data. The more data you collected that was of superior quality, the more likely you were going to make a recommendation that would benefit the client.

Of course, that seems like common sense to most of us. But sometimes this simple lesson is lost upon those who make the “above-my-paygrade” decisions in life. Notwithstanding the limits of evidence-based decision-making, there are plenty of instances we can point out in the geopolitical sphere where catastrophic decisions were made with little regard to the data available. For example, Iraq comes to mind. The Rwandan massacre is another example of the world ignoring the evidence available.

But in many cases it is not only the qualitative analysis of data that is the issue – it is a lack of data in itself that prevents us from making decisions we should have otherwise made. When it comes to human rights, the world’s experience with the Cambodian genocide comes to mind. One of the reasons, especially early on, that the world stood idly by as at least two million Cambodians were murdered by Pol Pot and his cronies, was the Khmer Rouge’s ability to manage the information that came out of the country. In short, the atrocities themselves were hidden behind the curtain of control, sparking doubts of credulity in the outside world.

Of course, if there’s any a regime that has been as successful as the Khmer Rouge in controlling information flows, it is Pyongyang.

The Logic and Illogic of Food Aid by Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland

[If you have not already read this article either at the Peterson Institute’s North Korea: Witness to Transformation blog or at 38North of the US-Korea Institute SAIS, we highly recommend this clear-speaking clarification and debunking of common arguments against food aid to the DPRK. We present here only the four statements (or myths) that are dealt with in the article and encourage you to read Haggard and Noland’s commentary here. –CanKor.]

As the food aid discussions heat up, we have been engaged in a number of conversations with friends–and critics–about the logic of granting food aid. Some of the arguments floating around need much closer scrutiny.

Comment on Chosun Ilbo article by anonymous USG source

[This is from a currently serving USG person who must, perforce, remain anonymous, responding to the Haggard/Noland post of April 7.]

Food aid should be carefully monitored by Korean-speaking US citizens. That said, let me share a few notes on Marcus’s good discussion:

1) WFP penetration of the northeast and northern provinces was less than many other places. Many of the non-covered counties were in North Hamgyong, where the vast majority of defectors come from;

2) Certainly no surprise that those who have fled the country might believe (with cause) that the military takes more than its share of goodies generally and report that, with or without evidence of diversion of food aid;

New monograph by Noland and Haggard on the role of economic statecraft

The East-West Center released Engaging North Korea: The Role of Economic Statecraft, a monograph written by Marcus Noland and Steph Haggard.  A description notes:

North Korea’s political economy and its external relations render it remarkably insensitive to either sanctions or inducements. Instead, its behavior appears driven to a significant extent by domestic political considerations and regime survival. It is conceivable that as the regime consolidates power internally, it may be more willing to undertake risks and engage in negotiations more seriously and substantively. It is possible that external constraints have simply not imposed enough pain, and that the country’s worsening food shortages might push the regime to reengage or to exploit a humanitarian gesture. But the converse appears equally, if not more, plausible: that the post–Kim Jong-il leadership may be too politically insecure or divided to make meaningful concessions, and consolidation will only reinforce the pre-existing trends toward a more hard-line and truculent policy. If so, the ultimate resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue may await fundamental change in the political regime.

Haggard and Noland also maintain a blog North Korea: Witness to Transformation which examines a wide range of issues involving North Korea.