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Audible Audiobook
Listening Length: 10 hours and 59 minutes
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Publisher: Audible Studios
Audible.com Release Date: May 9, 2014
Language: English, English
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I must admit it takes real mental gymnastics to wrap your head around the fact that a soviet national (from Leningrad) wrote a book on north Korea that is decidedly pro-capitalist. But past that, its an excellent overview of the DPRK, lacking only in the very latest of details. Kim Jong Nam went from simply being the bad sheep of the family to occupying a suite 6 feet underground. I suspect it is impossible to produce a true current edition on DPRK. The changes are simply to fast to keep current.The basic thesis of the book, that N. Korea is not crazy and on the brink of collapse, but rather quite calculating and stable, is depressing but probably correct. My take is we need a few living museums of hard communism left in the world to serve as examples. Thus N. Korea joins Cuba and Venezuela as shining examples of what not to do.All in all the author does a good job of making the history and current political situation interesting, which is hard. Few history texts are interesting (to me), since the material and probably the author are usually quite dusty.Read this book go get up to speed on N. Korea. Then, for what it's worth, you will know all about how WWIII started, and be able to tell everyone about it for at least an hour or so.
The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia by Andrei Lankov was written in 2013, two years after the Supreme Leader Marshal Kim Jong Un succeeded his late father, the Dear Leader Comrade General Kim Jong Il. Lankov was a Soviet-era exchange student who studied in Pyongyang and his fluency in Korean endeared him to his teachers and gave him access to the North Korean public. This book was unlike other modern accounts of the DPRK which I have read, in that it painted thoroughly dismal portraits of the future of the North after the inevitable downfall of its totalitarian system of government. I have read--and reviewed--quite a lot about the DPRK already, yet no book went as far in its detailed scenarios about the state of the northern half of the Korean peninsula after the Kim regime collapses. Yet before we get to the future of the DPRK, we have to deal with its past and present, and Lankov kept his history confined to the first chapter. The author thankfully did not bore me to sleep with his Korean War history, as I am prone to doze off when I read war stories. Thus I confess a personal prejudice for war histories in general.Kim Jong Un inherited a country that is worse off that at any time since the Korean War. The DPRK continues to struggle as a nation punished by sanctions and does not want to see another famine. What can it do to feed its population if its economy cannot provide? The answer, surprisingly, seems to be by not reforming its economy:"Unfortunately for the common North Koreans, the Pyongyang leaders' unwillingness to emulate China has very rational explanations. North Korean leaders stubbornly resist reform not because they are ideological zealots who blindly believe in the prescriptions of the Juche Idea (they do not, and the idea itself is too nebulous to be a guide to a practical policy anyway) nor because they are ignorant of the outside world. They are neither irrational nor ideological--on the contrary, they are rational to the extreme, being, perhaps, the most perfect bunch of Machiavellians currently in operation. The North Korean leaders do not want reforms because they realize that in the specific conditions produced by the division of their country, such reforms are potentially destabilizing and, if judged from the ruling elite's point of view, constitute the surest way of political (and, perhaps, physical) suicide."Lankov asserts that any reforms would trigger the end of the Kim regime. Once the population tastes reform, it will demand more. The North Korean elite fears an Arab Spring or a Ceaușescu-style purge if reforms are introduced, therefore no one is willing to implement any kind of change out of fear of losing one's elite privileges. Without a new economy, the North is left on its own, and can only get attention by stirring up trouble. And the DPRK has perfected the art of rocking the boat by blackmailing its enemies and even its few allies:"Indeed, from the North Korean point of view, it did not merely confirm that blackmail works, but rather confirmed that blackmail works wonders. One could hardly find a better confirmation of the efficiency of Pyongyang's usual tactics--first make a crisis, then escalate tensions, and finally extract payments and concessions for the restoration of the status quo."The North Korean tactic of issuing nuclear threats then reaping the rewards--all on its own terms--has led some diplomats to say enough is enough. They are calling North Korea's bluff, knowing full well that the North will never launch a nuclear missile against the South or any of the ROK's western allies. To do so would be an act of suicide. The strategy of leaving North Korea alone, letting it rant to an empty room, is new, yet has not proven to be entirely effective, as the North has perfected the art of getting whatever it wants regardless of international pressures. It is much like trying to say no to wailing baby:"The North Korean regime is thus not going to respond to either pressure or rewards, and this is increasingly obvious to the interested parties. There is therefore a great--and growing--temptation to say that North Korea is better to be forgotten and safely left alone. This is the essence of the 'strategic patience' strategy, which has quietly become the mainstream thinking of the US foreign policy establishment after 2009. In essence it says that the United States is willing to talk to North Korea, and maybe even 'reward' it with some monetary and political concessions, as long as North Korea does what the United States wants it to do--that is, starts dismantling its nuclear program. If it doesn't do so, the United States should, as strategic patience promoters insist, ignore North Korea's antics, since North Korea isn't going to be all that harmful anyway. A somewhat similar attitude seems to be dominant among the South Korean Right. These people believe that aid and political concessions make sense only if North Korean leaders agree to policies that are seen as 'rational' by Seoul."This reasoning might be attractive, but it seems to be unrealistic. North Korea has not the slightest desire to be left alone. Indeed, they cannot afford to be left alone. In order to compensate for the innate inefficiency of their economy, they need outside help, delivered on their specific conditions. So far, the best way to squeeze this aid has been to appear dangerous, unpredictable, and irrational. Therefore, they will continue to appear thus, attempting to cause more trouble for those countries and international forces from whom they hope to squeeze some resources. The alternative is not really attractive--either to survive on meager and perhaps diminishing returns of their nonfunctioning economy or to become excessively dependent on just one sponsor (China)."Lankov believes that the North cannot sustain itself and regime collapse is inevitable. When this will all happen is the question. The author supplied multiple scenarios of reunification, none of which involved a peaceful transition and blending of states. The irony is, as the Korean War falls further into history, more and more South Koreans do not want reunification. They see the costs they will have to bear to support their impoverished countrymen and say no thank-you. The mainland Chinese are worried that regime collapse will send a flood of starving unskilled North Koreans across its border, so they aim to keep the status quo. The international reaction is to leave the North Koreans to lie in their own threadbare bed, yet pretty soon the bedposts will rot and the mattress will fall down. What then? No one wants to deal with this inevitability.
I'm pretty sure the information in this book is largely spot on because; most everything I read about North Korea is effectively the same. There are slight variations but in effect the experiences shared by the different are largely the same. That said North Korea is the craziest place on Earth. If I hadn't known North Korea really exists, I'd swear the stories I hear about its government, its rulers and its history are the weird over the top fantasy of a kind found in Barbarella Queen of the Galaxy or (Brazil the campy Orwellian movie not the country)The books read almost like spy novels because; every aspect of life in North Korea reads like a James Bond thriller without any of the lavish accompaniments. You must learn spy craft just to live in North Korea because anything that does not revolve tightly around the Little Father Angel Darling Sweethearts or whatever the Fearless Leader of North Korea is called today is treason. For all my lite hearted flippant talk about this book it is compelling and sad to hear of so much suffering by just plain common folk in North Korea. Hearing of people starving to death hurts my heart to a point words can explain. Hearing of people so starved that they don't stand because doing so burns to much energy saddens me greatly.The really terrible thing is in the face of such horrid suffering we in the west are powerless to help North Korea working people because; the government would use whatever it saves to build Atomic bombs. North Korean communism is not the new communism lite like practiced in China and Vietnam. North Korean communism is full on Brutal Stalinist micromanagement personality cult communism that punishes you if you don't clean the portraits of the North Korean fearless leader angel darling sweethearts past and present.
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