Hey, I wanted to hear more about those pressure points.

Watch my good friend Sung Yoon Lee, appearing on the PBS News Hour, speaking in edited paragraphs. I can hardly write an edited paragraph. In my native language. How does he do that?

Oh, and some guy named Victor Cha was there, too. Cha and Lee seem to agree that North Korea’s recent brazenness is related to the succession, and inventing some cred for Kim Jong Eun, which also sounds plausible to me even if I don’t think Jong Eun has any real power. Lee is quoted in the New York Times as speculating that all of this may be leading up to making a big event of January 8th, the birthday of our new porcine prince. The thing is, the North Korean people seem to loathe Jong Eun so much that at the end of this succession process, he’s probably going to end up being much more useful as fall guy than as a figurehead. In fact, it’s occurred to me that that’s exactly where this whole succession process could be headed.

My regret here is that Prof. Lee was just getting to the interesting part at the end. It’s tragic he didn’t get 30 more seconds to elaborate before a national audience.

4 Responses

  1. I was a bit surprised to read B.R Myers’ take on this attack. While I agree with him that the DPRK’s promotion of its military strength and its aggressive use is part of the DPRK’s ideology, I don’t think it follows from that that there is no other tactic in play such as its search for concessions or as part of grooming Kim Jong-un. In fact in his book he had suggested that this behaviour is likely driven by such tactics just as much. If Kim Jong-un is to become the recognised leader of the country then surely he would need to be seen as a military commander.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/25/opinion/25myers.html?_r=1

    This is what I was trying to say here:

    http://angrysoba.blogspot.com/2010/11/br-myers-weighs-in-on-dprks-act-of.html

  2. “My regret here is that Prof. Lee was just getting to the interesting part at the end. It’s tragic he didn’t get 30 more seconds to elaborate before a national audience. “
    —————————-
    yes, what are NK’s points of vulnerability?

  3. Josh – I notice that my posts never seem to make it on the board. Am I violating some policy in my postings? I’ve searched your blog and I don’t see a list of guidelines. I thought the purpose of the blog was to inform and encourage discussion.

    [There is a list of guidelines at the “About” link. This is the first comment I’ve seen from you, and unless you’re actually a Moldovan spammer, I’ve never deleted or disapproved any of your comments. I’m guessing it may be a technical issue. Sorry, Joshua]