Quote Originally Posted by Bill Moore View Post
External support in eastern Europe came in the form of information, money, advice, both from states and the church.
As I understand it(rightly or wrongly), the Catholic Church under Polish Pope John Paul II had a partnership or at least closely aligned interests with Reagan Administration led NATO during the 80's with Poland/Solidarity being one of the key points of focus.

As I understand it, there are private groups in South Korea that may be acting unilaterally with efforts of quite questionable effectiveness like balloon flights laden with western media.

On the surface it seems similar, but I suspect a key difference is that private non kinetic efforts against the Warsaw Pact were aligned(or not contrary to) with government policy, while private efforts against North Korea may be an embarrassing disconnect with South Korean/allied strategic and diplomatic policy.

As indicated here:

http://www.theatlantic.com/internati...drives/283106/

Is that a crucial and key difference?

Could the behaviour of some key partners/allies(US, Japan perhaps) be akin to perpetually refinancing the "North Korean mortgage" and pushing out the "balloon payments" when NK falls?