North Korea: 2012-2016

**Maeda Toshiie** · 04-12-2013

Originally Posted by carl

Slap:

I've been thinking on this and I wonder if there is something else, another type of ring, that can be attacked ala Warden and attacking Kim III as a system...sort of.

According to the interview with Prof Byers the slaves in the DPRK know only what the king and the king's men want them to know. The Kim dynasty's power depends entirely upon that. What if you put big drones continuously off both coasts. The drones would be broadcast stations for TV, radio and any other thing you could think of. They would show and talk about the world, especially South Korea, compare and contrast, how the South Koreans aren't downtrodden and aren't living for the day the peninsula is reunited. Also highlight how all the suffering those poor people undergo is really for the Kims and nobody else.

The effectiveness of this could be gauged by how much the Kim regime howled. What do you think?

Based on what I have read in this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_Envy

No. Not likely to work.

1. For those with state sanctioned TVs and radios, they can't be tuned to any other channels. If someone else parks transmitters to transmitted and/or jam the official North Korean channels, this might just provoke a real war.

2. Via the border, there is quite a bit of a black market trade ongoing. This means that those (other than the Pyongyang elite) with connections, especially those locals near the border, do have access to illicit material including SK soaps.

3. My personal theory: many in the country knows just how screwed up their country in comparison with the rest of the world. For those old enough, they certainly know that things had gone much worse since the early 90s. This includes people in the power structure, especially those from the mid tier down. Meanwhile their survival instincts kick in and they simply want to carve out whatever they can out of this crumbling rubbish heap. If they can climb higher up this trash heap, the better. If they can profit from the illegal black market trade, the better.

As for the generation were born in the 90s? It is hard to say. They might just be convinced that their current circumstances are the best that have ever been (in NK at least) and it is all thanks to the evil imperialists and their running dogs.

Because of how pervasive the controls are in place, no one knows who or what to trust, not even close family members of blood. They parrot the necessary words and actions when in front of any other human being (or worse, any living thing). Only those who are brave enough or desperate enough, would attempt to get out of that mental assylum. Somehow, I do feel that the control system that was set in place is so strong that it even locks the top leadership into this rattling train that is slowly falling apart on its way to hell.

Off topic: God, I wish SK manufactured music and TV soaps would stop afflicting the region...

**carl** · 04-12-2013

Maeda Toshiie:

Prof. Byers makes the same point in the interview that Kim's slaves don't actually have much envy of the outside world. The propaganda world they live in has taken care of that. But a critical point he makes is that the sacrifices they know they are making have a point, the 'liberation' of the south and reunification of the peninsula. He says that since the South has elected a gov that is actually kind of hostile that whole line of argument is breaking down. Sort of "We go through all this to save them and they don't want to be saved. WTF? Why are we doing this?" He says enough info is getting through so that is becoming a concern, hence the provocations.

The other point he makes is if the idea gets out that all the suffering isn't for Korea, but for the Kims, then there might be trouble.

So the idea would be to build upon those two things.

As far as the technical aspects, I don't know. I have confidence in people's ingenuity with radios, TVs, cell phones and all that. But their ingenuity won't come into play unless they have something to shoot for and broadcasts or texts or whatever are something to shoot for.

You are very right that a well organized police state with an ideology of some kind to back it up is extremely difficult to bring down from the inside, perhaps impossible. So the kind of outside push I am suggesting may help a bit. Or it may not do anything at all. I figure though something new (maybe it was tried before, I don't know) should be tried. Otherwise the choice ultimately is giving Kim III a blank check, or a big war. If they get really upset we would know it was working.

The thing in the interview that mildly shocked me was that the average North Korean man is shorter than the average South Korean woman. That is something.

**Maeda Toshiie** · 04-12-2013

From the reports by the defecting civilians, the famine in the 90s took a severe toll, in deaths and the health of those who survived. This is especially true in areas outside of Pyongyang. I am sure those who grew up at that period of time (and survived), would have suffer from stunted growth.

I suppose the good outcome of that is that their army has a larger number of people to select tankers from, given the size of Soviet tanks.

I think there are sporadic reports of mutinies over the years. Not all may be true, but I can't believe that all are untrue. The guess of some is that these mutinies are due to ration shortage. Given the draconian discipline, they must be really hungry to mutiny.

There are reports that PRC stopped shipment of fuel to NK. Might actually be untrue with shipments continuing quietly, but surely a sign of PRC's anger towards NK's recent action.

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The possible scenarios that I can see (but not necessarily likely):

1. North Korea attempts to maintain status quo, while trying to squeeze whatever concessions they can out of the rest of the world and PRC. NK will slowly waste away while the rest of the world moves on.

2. North Korea attempts to follow PRC's example of liberalizing the economy. This is highly unlikely, since Kim III is no Deng Xiaoping, nor there seems to be a Deng Xiaoping in NK. Even if there is, he/she can't do anything with the cult of Kim being firmly entrenched in the political ideology. The chance of this happening is very very slim.

3. North Korea finally implodes with Kim losing control or dead. Would the PLA drive in and attempt to secure Pyongyang and plant a puppet? Would there be a sufficiently big incident that the South Korean government can use as justification to intervene?

4. (Unintended?) escalation to full-scale war, due to the hardline factions on both sides who keep raising the stakes?

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The cost of the war and the even bigger cost of reunification is what stopping South Korea from marching north and putting an end to it all. I am sure everyone is aware that the cost will make the German reunification look like a walk in the park. Plus, I believe South Korean government still wants sufficient justification for a massive intervention. At the very least, they probably want to look like they are forced into action, so as to make themselves look like the victim of NK bullying and then as a saviour for the North Korean civilians on world political stage. However bellicose the current rhetoric seems, it is still words and no blood has been spilled these few months.

It's late over here at GMT +8. My post may seem a little incoherent...