	Generational Dynamics
	Forecasting America's Destiny ... and the World's

\| HOME \| WEB LOG \| COUNTRY WIKI \| COMMENT \| FORUM \| DOWNLOADS \| ABOUT \|

Generational Dynamics Web Log for 21-Sep-05
North Korea plays a little joke on the world

Web Log - September, 2005

North Korea plays a little joke on the world

North Korea's "no more nuclear" pledge startled the world, but now they say, "Ha, ha, fooled ya."

Much to everyone's surprise, North Korea appeared on Sunday to have backed down on its plans to continue development of nuclear weapons.

The news reports were ebullient. President Bush said, "Five nations have spoken and said it is not in the world's interests that North Korea have a nuclear weapon. And now there's a way forward. And part of the way forward is for the North Koreans to understand that we're serious about this and that we expect there to be a verifiable process. In other words they have said, in principle, that they will abandon their weapons programs."

North Korea didn't actual say they'd abandon their nuclear weapons program. What they said is that they'd talk about it. The next meeting to talk about it will be in November.

Well, it took only one day for North Korea to reverse itself. On Tuesday, North Korea's Foreign Ministry issued a statement: "The U.S. should not even dream of the issue of North Korea's dismantlement of its nuclear deterrent before providing light-water reactors. This is our just and consistent stand as solid as a deeply rooted rock."

What's going on with North Korea? Why are they up and down like a yoyo?

I have no way of knowing for sure, of course, but here's a possible explanation, better than some of the giddy explanations I've seen in the press:

The first factor is that North Korea is facing a major famine this winter. Furthermore, the country is in a generational crisis period, meaning that a "people's rebellion" against President Kim Jong-il's government is a good possibility if the famine is bad enough. There is no more powerful motivator for a crisis war than when men can't feed their families.

Incidentally, North Korea had a bad famine in the mid-1990s without any people's rebellion. But the country was in a generational unraveling era at that time, an era of compromise, not rebellion. It's different today.

Kim knows that, and knows that he has to be perceived to be cooperative if he's to get aid from the international community.

The second factor is that North Korea has absolutely no intention on earth of discontinuing its nuclear weapons development program.

Each of these factors has its own constituency in Pyongyang politics, and they're in conflict, and this conflict is showing up in the nuclear non-proliferation negotiations.

There is one thing that's changed in the last few weeks: Pyongyang has become less openly militaristic.

Conflict risk level for next 6-12 months as of: 30-May-2005

W. Europe 1 Arab Israeli 2

Russia Caucasus 2 Kashmir 1

China 2 North Korea 3

Financial 3 Bird flu 3

Key: 1=green 1=Low risk 2=yellow 2=Med 3=red 3=High 4=black 4=Active

Throughout the last two years, it seems that Kim was making an ever-increasing series of threats, and making a series of justifications for a pre-emptive war against South Korea and Japan. That's why North Korea is at the highest conflict risk level in my conflict list graph.

But for the last 2-3 months, Kim has been less aggressively confrontative. This doesn't mean that Kim's plans have changed -- he's still planning pre-emptive war against South Korea and Japan. But it no longer seems that this will happen in the next few months.

If this trend continues for the next couple of weeks, then I will adjust the conflict graph and reduce North Korea's risk level from 3 to 2.

Some things haven't changed, though. A major stock market crash could certainly happen this fall, and a worldwide bird flu pandemic could also happen this fall. (21-Sep-05) Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal

Web Log Pages

Current Web Log

Generational Dynamics Web Log for 21-Sep-05 North Korea plays a little joke on the world

Web Log Pages

Generational Dynamics Web Log for 21-Sep-05
North Korea plays a little joke on the world