North Korea: 2012-2016

[carl]

Who ever said anything about fighting to restore the Kim regime? How do you know they wouldn't fight to be able to define the successor to the Kim regime themselves, rather than having it defined by an outside power? Or that various factions who want to take over wouldn't fight with each other and anyone else willing to be on the spot?.

I read a few articles that max161 posted. From these and from doing a little cogitating it seems that the existence of northern Korea is currently and has been for the past 1/2 century about one thing, the preservation of the Kim dynasty. So then I figured if the place collapsed it would be logical to assume that if those poor enslaved people chose to engage in a noble insurgency against the South Koreans who would likely show up, they would be inclined to fight for the restoration of the thing they have been taught is the center of the universe, the Kim dynasty.

You use the phrase "define the successor to the Kim regime themselves". Now given that those tragic enslaved people have had their political horizons and imaginations constrained at knife point for generations, I wonder if the concept of defining anything themselves would register.

I wouldn't be prepared to bet that the north would simply submit to foreign intervention, or that lack of money or sanctuary would render them unable to insurge. It might happen, but it might not... and if it didn't, the occupying power could find themselves in a quite unpleasant situation..

Anybody can insurge. But the lack of sanctuary makes if very much harder to successfully insurge.

The insurgency has gone on for over 40 years. If you include the Huk rebellion (which is reasonable), it's gone on for well over 60 years... without sanctuary or significant foreign assistance. Of course it's had ups and downs within that time, but even now it's by no means over.

Let's grant that for arguments sake. So what we have is an insurgency or 'gies that just can't seem to win. And they don't have any sanctuary in another country that they can use, so if the gov forces get up the moxie or power there is no place they can't be got to. This seems a good argument to the effect that if you want you guerrilla war to work out well for the guerrillas, you would do well to pick a country that shares a border with another country that your guerrillas can use as a sanctuary. That is not 100% true all the time, but it seems a very strong trend.

Not so. The government didn't suppress/defeat the insurgency. The insurgency collapsed to the extent that it has because of the sudden and unexpected loss of the Marcos regime and because of its own inability to adapt to the post-Marcos political landscape, not because of anything government did.

I think you gave a good explication as to why the gov had everything to do with the insurgency collapsing. The gov changed itself in a way that foiled the insurgency. That is exactly the thing govs are supposed to try and pull off.