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The Long Wait

By Michael Crowley | @CrowleyTIME | September 27, 2010 | +

Fun WaPo story on the strange and frustrating lives of professional North Korea-watchers:

Sometimes, careers are built around incorrect predictions. Seoul-based historian Andrei Lankov spent the early 1990s anticipating something that hasn’t happened. In his 30s at the time – “just a beginner,” Lankov recalled – he felt certain that North Korea would collapse after leader Kim Il Sung’s death. He planned his life around it. He craved the firsthand research that North Korea’s collapse would allow. He called it his “top academic ambition” to enter the nation that operated like a vault, turning the imagined into the tactile. He’s still waiting.

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  • herby002

    Well, there’s always hope. The NK collapse could happen anytime, with little warning. After all, very few people foresaw the swift collapse of the Soviet Union’s empire. A leadership succession mess in NK might cause insurmountable problems for the ruling class.

    “Be careful what you wish for.”

    I’ve read that one reason that China is propping up the North Korean regime is that it’s afraid of what would happen if its government starts to lose control:

    - Centrally planned food distribution system breaks down, so millions of people start scrambling for food.
    - Million-man military loses its privileged place in line for distribution of scarce food and supplies, so starts scrounging for what it needs from government stores – or just loots.
    - Waves of starving civilians pour over the Chinese border looking for food and (relative) freedom.
    - Desperate military units take over the nuclear weapons facilities, and threaten to blow up [somebody] if they don’t do what they demand [whatever that might be].

    The South Korean government is probably worried about the same possibilities, and hopes for a “quiet collapse” with enough time to prepare for any contingency.

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