Götterdämmerung Watch
Today, I catch up with KCJ and the rest of you who’ve commented on Kurt Achin’s intriguing new VOA report on the prospects for regime collapse:
For the first time in years, international experts say North Korea’s isolated government is increasingly frail, and potentially unstable. Part of the reason, they say, is Pyongyang’s attempt at currency reform last year. [….]
“I think there’s some increasing views in Seoul that after 20 years of wrongly predicting the demise of North Korea, there’s something going on in Pyongyang,” said Gordon Flake. “There are a growing number of people in South Korea who say that we’re getting close to the end game here.”
Among them are Andrei Lankov, a scholar at Seoul’s Kookmin University, who is quite blunt about the prospects of a North Korean collapse. “It’s a very likely probability,” said Andrei Lankov. “And personally, if you ask me, I don’t believe there is going to be a peaceful, gradual end of the North Korean regime. It will be dramatic, and probably violent.” [VOA, Kurt Achin]
It’s interesting that I was speaking with Lankov about this very topic over coffee just a week ago. I asked Andrei what he thinks has gotten into the North Koreans recently. We agreed that financial and political desperation, and posturing for succession, are reasonable explanations, but Lankov raised a possibility that had never even occurred to me: that Kim Jong Il hasn’t been himself, mentally speaking, since the stroke. That’s a fairly frightening thing to contemplate.
I’m going to have much, much more to say about this topic soon enough. I spent the better part of last weekend writing a whole manifesto about this topic while attending to a sick kid. The short version is that changes in North Korea’s internal political situation and external behavior call for new thinking by the United States and South Korea. Unfortunately, I’ve come to the conclusion that the North Koreans still aren’t in a position to overthrow their government because they still have no means to organize against it, and because the military would open fire on any mass demonstrations. The people need our help to organize and coalesce around a better idea. Once a political underground takes root, they may be able to do the rest on their own. An optimist would say that a few dramatic shows of force would be enough to split the security forces or shift China’s thinking about its sponsorship. A pessimist would say that catalyzing Götterdämmerung would require a bloody period of insurgency, mutiny, and anarchy. I still posit that it would be less bloody than a continuation of the status quo, or what could happen if the regime fully recovers its capacity to repress.
I would just as well assume that their potential for collapse is going be fixed up by China. Isn’t that why Kim Jong Il is on his way to Beijing?
If the DPRK did have a violent collapse, do you think China would back them like they did in the Korean War? China’s military is much more powerful today than it was then, and they certainly turned the tide against the UN forces. It would be One Free Korea today if not for Chinese support all those years ago. I doubt they’ll let the regime collapse easily.
“And personally, if you ask me, I don’t believe there is going to be a peaceful, gradual end of the North Korean regime. It will be dramatic, and probably violent.”
What? You mean no drum circle??
If I read it right, James’s comment above implies that China’s government has all the power to decide how to handle NK, especially a tottering NK. As I see it, though, another force has even more power – China’s economy. Objectively, it is bad for business to have this little freak, w/his toys and temper tantrums, right next door. And about seven hundred miles from the capital! People now long dead, who lived in a now-vanished world, wrote and signed most of the PRC/NK treaties, agreements, etc. IMO, only those non-negotiable pieces of paper compel the PRC to write the welfare checks. China, like all other human organizations of all types/sizes, has NO immunity from profit-based, incentive-based market economics. Economics, in large part, pushed China to establish formal diplomatic relations w/SK. Economic forces drive PRC/SK trade. China knows the value of dependable access to well-managed port facilities in Northeast NK. China knows very well the mineral resources of NK – IIRC in the $trillions. Using NK to hassle the US/Japan/SK/etc. ultimately does not employ, house, or feed the people of the People’s Republic of China. Who, BTW, are the most important part of the whole nation – read the name of the country. A few days ago, the WSJ ran an article about NK. In one comment, someone wrote that PRC is scared of inevitable US bases right at the Yalu. So who says the US wants that?
IWe can think of a nation that could/would/should handle this: South Korea. To my knowledge, SK has never harmed the people or the economic/diplomatic/political interests of the PRC, certainly since they recognized each other. Past the simple existence of its military, SK has never harmed the military interests of the PRC. These nations have never fired a single bullet at each other. NK cannot make the same claims. A unified Korea, managed by the present SK, benefits everyone. Not excepting the people of the present North Korea – whom I shamefully ignored in this screed.Bottom line: IMHO, the PRC has looked at/over the whole situation and wants NK gone. From what I have seen, it won’t happen like East Germany. If external stake-holders “guide” the process, they want to do so after the Norks dress Li’l Kim in the jammies w/the little feet and place him in a crib next to his daddy. Nighty-night . . .
OP:
Ha ha! I wrote about that very subject over a year and a half ago:
As I alluded in that link above, people who have strokes often go through some profound personality changes. Well, actually, more like certain parts of their personality seem to be enhanced as other parts are damaged or destroyed.
An aging KJI might who has been stripped of some of his more monstrous tendencies might very well be concerned about his true legacy to the rest of the world.
Lankov knows North Korea far better than I do, but I wonder if KJI, especially now that he’s stroke emfeebled, would have the authority to order a military strike against the wishes of the generals. My impression is that the North Korean military leadership collectively may be even more powerful than the fellow who inherited his job from his genuinely revered father. If a torpedo strike did sink the ship, I’d think it more likely that the NK military leadership decided on the attack and got approval from KJI than the other way around.
I agree with Lankov. It’s probably highly idealistic to think that the security forces could ever be split with the eventual goal of a military coup. That is, IF there can EVER be a political underground in North Korea.
In the event of a regime collapse, I’m of the opinion that China has been posturing itself to invade and take over. Especially with its recent economic deals with the regime and the fleecing of North Korea’s natural resources.
Sonagi, I don’t know that he’s so much “stroke emfeebled” as just slightly altered. But I think you’re right that if he did seem like his behavior was no longer “like himself,” they might collectively take over, turning him into a figurehead.
In fact, I have wondered for sometime if that wasn’t already the case. It would explain all his trips to factories.
Who knows? He may have a contingent running the show like the feeble Pope John Paul II did when he was in his twilight years, or he may have an Edith Wilson filtering what goes in and out of his office. I’m just speculating, but if it turned out that he was exerting no real power, I wouldn’t be surprised at all.
The Chosun Ilbo is gleefully reporting that Kim was seen walking with a limp and was not using his left hand. He looked haggard in paparazzi-type photos. I would describe someone without full use of all limbs as enfeebled. If Kim were a US resident, he would likely qualify for Social Security disability payments and a handicapped license plate for his vehicle. Unfortunately, having a handicapped license plate would not guarantee him accessible parking at Walmart or popular parks on holidays, as I discovered during Mom’s Christmas visit.
A few observations and speculations:
1. Jucheism has held the DPRK together since at least the 1970s and became blatantly cultic after KIS died. Jucheism is failing now and that is what is really driving desperate lunging by the KWP and the cult priests. 40% of NK’s GDP is spent on the maintenance of the man-made cult of Juche and they are signally not getting a worthwhile return for their investment.
2. Failure of the cult = failure of the culture. Unless one understands the bizarre father/children relationship fostered by Pyongyang’s godmakers around KIS, one would not be inclined to observe the Juche cult’s dynamics as causal. But it is. Juche is all. If Juche wanes, waxes or fails, the entire structure tumbles into chaos and most likely, some kind of civil war or an instigation with an outside power as a means to reunify the splintered society.
3. China will prefer the DPRK remains a sovereign power after the collapse of Pyongyang. This end state works well for China which does not want a unified pro-US Korea as an economic competitor nor a military adversary.
4. China cannot get the DPRK to open up to market reforms as long as Juche is the state religion. Juche is why Sunshine Policy was doomed to fail from the start and why even the PRC cannot force NK to open up.
5. China has culturally annexed North Korea with its activity at Mt. Paekdu (Chinese: Changbai Mountain), which is the legendary birthplace of Tan Gun (born 2333 BC), Father of the Korean race. The DPRK claims to have found the remains of Tan Gun in 2002 and dedicated a shrine to him. Mt. Paekdu is mentioned in the first line of the ROK national anthem.
6. If China succeeds in occupying a post-Juche NK, there will either be war with SK and its allies (unlikely) or a demand from ROK Leftists to force USFK off the peninsula. This will lead inevitably to a dimunition of ROK sovereignty and an eventual absorption of the Korean peninsula by an ascendant China.
7. KCJ’s crystal ball gaze: formidable pro-Christian, pro-capitalist factions are already maturing and growing in NK’s underground. There will be a UN military intervention in Pyongyang after an unforced collapse. KIS’s images will be defaced by the Koreans themselves signaling the end of Jucheism. An aggressive humanitarian relief operation led by US Forces will stop a hemmoraging northern border (which will be heavily fortified by PRC regulars NOT offering humanitarian assistance) and win support for reunified Korea under ROK influence if not outright governance. Once the NK military industrial complex is dismantled, NKs will be economically dependent on SK’s industrial barons for decades and will eventually gain parity with their southern brethren. The North will rapidly turn to Christianity which will greatly hasten their reintegration into the global village.