Will North Korea collapse in the next 4 years?

[Darth Rotor]

You misunderstand me.

I am saying for North Korea's purposes there is no need to start a new war.

Every single day they are fed stories of atrocities and betrayal by the Yankees and their running dogs from the Korean War.

It might occupy only a small part of our own brainspace but in North Korea it doesn't.

The periodic flashpoints such as the sinking of a South Korean vessel, the shelling of an island, the occasional shooting death of someone on one side or another play well into that idea that the Korean War is still going and could escalate suddenly.

Ah, I see. Perpetuation of the warfare state.

Thanks.

 

[portlandatheist]

Part of the point I was trying to make in my OP is that the propaganda machine won't be effective for a variety of reasons. The biggest reason is they just have much less to work with compared with Kim Ill-Sung and the population is wiser and more sophisticated. The black market for South Korean TV shows on DVD has become substantial as well as illegal cell phones that connect to Chinese towers. The propaganda machine was once able to tell the population that they have things much better than everyone else, now they simply can't do this. The deification of Kim Jung-eun just won't ever happen. How important that is or isn't is another question but Eun is never going to enjoy the same status among the people that either his father or grand father enjoyed.
There definitely is activity happening in NK signalling instability. For example, there is a lot of tension between the NSA and the People's Safety Ministry.
I also wanted to mention that there is a substantial amount of illegal capitalism happening in regards to food markets making people less dependent on their government provided rations. A citizen uprising seems unlikely given how much totalitarian control there is and the consequences for citizens misbehaving but at the same time, a small event could bring down the house of cards pretty fast. In NK right now, there still is real fear and the system very much in tact, but at the same time, everybody is keenly aware that the emperor wears no clothes. I can't wait to revisit this thread if and when collapse happens.

 

[crimresearch]

Collapse? ALready in progress

Here's all the proof that anyone should need...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBgMeunuviE

 

[angrysoba]

Part of the point I was trying to make in my OP is that the propaganda machine won't be effective for a variety of reasons. The biggest reason is they just have much less to work with compared with Kim Ill-Sung and the population is wiser and more sophisticated. The black market for South Korean TV shows on DVD has become substantial as well as illegal cell phones that connect to Chinese towers. The propaganda machine was once able to tell the population that they have things much better than everyone else, now they simply can't do this.

In Kim Il-sung's time when North Korea was still getting generous amounts of Soviet subsidies and the standard of living was comparable to that of the standard of living in the South then the propaganda machine probably did tell the population that they have things much better than everyone else.

But since the days of the "Arduous March" (famine of the mid-nineties) they no longer do this. The legitimacy of the North Korean regime isn't based on economic superiority over the South. If it was then North Korea would probably have followed the East European countries or Russia in moving away from Communism. Instead it derives its legitimacy from the idea that it is the purer Korea whereas the South is decadent, collaborationist, controlled by the Yankees and the Japanese and unhappy (they will mention suicide statistics etc...).

The deification of Kim Jung-eun just won't ever happen. How important that is or isn't is another question but Eun is never going to enjoy the same status among the people that either his father or grand father enjoyed.
There definitely is activity happening in NK signalling instability. For example, there is a lot of tension between the NSA and the People's Safety Ministry.

I think this could be the key thing. Kim Jong-Eun may not have all the charisma of his grandfather or even reach the pretty low bar of his father but he is a descendent of the Great Smashing Super Leader and Inestimable Comrade Kim Il-sung and does seem to be dressed and haircutted like him. I think the propaganda machine is trying to establish his cult of personality that way. It remains to be seen if it will work. We can't say "never" though. Not yet.

I also wanted to mention that there is a substantial amount of illegal capitalism happening in regards to food markets making people less dependent on their government provided rations. A citizen uprising seems unlikely given how much totalitarian control there is and the consequences for citizens misbehaving but at the same time, a small event could bring down the house of cards pretty fast. In NK right now, there still is real fear and the system very much in tact, but at the same time, everybody is keenly aware that the emperor wears no clothes. I can't wait to revisit this thread if and when collapse happens.

I am not sure what you mean by "everyone is aware the emperor wears no clothes". I don't agree. I think that a lot of Koreans accept the official government line that the army comes first and that they will have to fend largely for themselves. The government turns a blind eye to the underground capitalist movement to some extent in a kind of "you pretend you're not going to the markets and we'll pretend we're against them" sort of way.

 

[angrysoba]

Collapse? ALready in progress

Here's all the proof that anyone should need...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBgMeunuviE

Hey! How about a NSFW here!

 

[DonJunbar]

I've always said that China is the most capitalistic country I've ever visited, and North Korea is the most religious.

Got my fingers crossed, but I've seen up close how they hold the regime together. The country is doing better than it was ten years ago, but any blame for their bad conditions is deflected to the US embargo and other aggressions and the Japanese imperialistic era.

They're starting to get more cars, more cell phones, more electricity, and I think the more they develop, the closer to actual political changes they'll get.

 

[Toontown]

A way needs to be found to prevent it's collapse without making it (powerful + stupid) enough to build up a big nuclear arsenal and invade South Korea again. A collapse would be very messy. North Korean guts would be spilling out everywhere. The entire region would be covered with nasty, smelly old guts, probably causing rampant disease and starvation. Nuclear materials would no doubt be seized by terrorists and spirited away. Or sold to them.

 

[Nosi]

Some of the things that have recently happened in NK that hint at change are the murders of four officials in Cheogjin and anti regime flyers being distrusted in the same town.
My vote is for a coup but I think it could play out many other ways but I'm confident collapse is going to happen

What gives you hope gives Red China painfully twisted knickers.

 

[Nosi]

Who is Kim Jung Sung and was this person really a "prolific writer"?

I know that Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il both had lots of works attributed to them but I think the propaganda people are busy churning out books "by Kim Jong-Eun" as well.

The DPRK's inevitable collapse has been talked about since about 1989 and somehow it still manages to keep plugging along.

With China getting stronger the North Koreans may continue to find the subsidies it needs to keep everyone just on the brink of survival and with too little energy to revolt.

But there is an important question re: North Korea and that is "what would collapse actually look like in this case?"

That would be so if we did not have a nuclear wild card at play. Said card can make even China nervious. How that wild card is played will dictate China's future actions in this matter.

 

[Nosi]

I'm sorry...but every indication that I see in China, from both the leadership and the common people, is that they are as paranoid and worried about North Korea's leadership as anyone else. A harmless regime that draws attention from China...great. A regime that threatens to throw the region into nuclear war...not so great.

All of us including China have more to worry about than Nukes. North Korea has been seriously playing with chemical/germ warfare using their prisoners as guinea pigs, sometimes using them to test gas.

 

[angrysoba]

All of us including China have more to worry about than Nukes. North Korea has been seriously playing with chemical/germ warfare using their prisoners as guinea pigs, sometimes using them to test gas.

It is always difficult to tell what is going on in North Korea and not all refugee testimony is reliable but there certainly does seem to be quite a bit of corroboration to the concentration camp horrors here:

http://freekorea.us/camps/22

 

[Nosi]

Then they may be forced to act much sooner than they'd prefer (probably if/when NK is on the brink of doing something monumentally stupid).

All I'm saying is that, all other factors being equal, China would prefer to see the three-ring circus that is NK continue to keep the world's attention fixed there rather than have it shift to what China is doing in the meantime, and they will let NK go right to the brink (and possibly over it) before stepping in.

"Going over the brink" can involve chemical weapons and bio-warfare. Mustard gas was cooked up by the Germans in WWI. This was nicely tuned in the prison camps. China with her butt planted on the border of North Korea has a vested interest in keeping those things from going off as much as South Korea!

 

[Puppycow]

It doesn't matter how he "portrays" himself...nor does he really have any control over it. It is the vast military/political machine that controls how he's perceived. So long as he's useful to them as a figurehead, they'll build him up. But if he were ever to show signs of independence, that same propaganda machine could destroy him. He simply does not have the power, control, or experience that his father or grandfather did; he's a puppet for others who are taking advantage of this situation for their own benefit.

Still think that's true?

Top North Korean Defense Official Replaced, South Korea Says

SEOUL, South Korea — Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s leader, has replaced his defense minister with a hard-line general as part of his effort to fill the army leadership with a new generation of officers loyal to him, South Korean officials said Thursday.

. . .

Kim Jong-un, who took power after his father’s death, was testing the loyalty of top generals by dismissing or demoting them and letting them try to win his favor again, according to South Korean officials and analysts. Meanwhile, they say, he has been putting his own stamp on the military leadership by elevating a new lineup of officers who will owe their promotions to him, like Vice Marshal Choe Ryong-hae, director of the General Political Bureau of the Korean People’s Army, and Hyon Yong-chol, who replaced Vice Marshal Ri as chief of the military’s general staff.

North Korean generals have long been seen as chess pieces in the Kim family’s maneuvers to control the military, which is the backbone of the government’s control of the impoverished populace and whose missile and nuclear arms programs are its main leverage in negotiating with its external enemies. Generals have often been fired or demoted and later reinstated.

All four of the top generals who escorted Kim Jong-il’s bier have now fallen from the top leadership under the son’s rule. The ousted defense minister, Kim Jong-gak, was appointed to the Politburo in April and installed in the defense post, replacing another of the four, Kim Yong-chun, who was reportedly transferred to a relatively low-profile party position. Kim Jong-gak disappeared from North Korean news reports after attending a state function late last month.

Seems he is very much in charge, and not anyone's puppet or figurehead.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Seems he is very much in charge, and not anyone's puppet or figurehead.

He may also have pictures of a variety of upper echelon figures in a variety of compromising positions.

That may help him stay in power.

 

[angrysoba]

He may also have pictures of a variety of upper echelon figures in a variety of compromising positions.

That may help him stay in power.

I think that when it comes to North Korea, the most likely thing to happen next is what has always been happening.

This way of thinking doesn't always work out; many people were caught out by the Arab Spring and yet the Arab Spring was always far more likely to happen because of the obvious and measured signs of discontent among the people of Egypt and elsewhere in the region.

In North Korea no such comparable signs of discontent with the Kim dynasty seem to exist. Certainly not at a comparable level.

 

[Nosi]

Voted coup.

If there are any grassroots civil opposition groups in North Korea they're better hidden than Pat Robertson's sense of decency, and no external power wants to anger China enough to even think of a shooting war. The only real threat to Kim Jong-Doofus is probably someone he trusts most - a kingmaker, someone with connections who isn't a complete lackey. There would have to be at least one person like that in Pyongyang.

There are churches and Christians tucked away in North Korea. And your right, they are some of the stealthiest people on the planet.

There is information going in and out of North Korea via highly illegal cellphones that record material for smuggling to networks in China. Incoming information comes by cellphone, outgoing data the same way.

 

[L.Y.S.]

I think Kim Jun en is smart enough to know that even the Chinese are becoming tired of them. I see reforms in the future, not in the immediate future, but in the future.

 

[dudalb]

NK is already in such bad shape economically it is sort of hard to figure out what a collapse would look like. Zimbabwe has a booming economy compared to North Korea.

Question is whether the Kim Dynasty is capable of carrying out even small scale reforms.

 

[Darth Rotor]

I have been drinking about this.

I hope South Korea gets shiggy, and is as ruthless to the NorKors as they were to the Viet Namese when their Tiger Brigade was there.

That'll get the bleeding hearts all up in arms, which will make the blood shed almost worth it.

 

[Nosi]

I have been drinking about this.

I hope South Korea gets shiggy, and is as ruthless to the NorKors as they were to the Viet Namese when their Tiger Brigade was there.

That'll get the bleeding hearts all up in arms, which will make the blood shed almost worth it.

North Korea was in Vietnam during the war?