March 1994

My feeling is that, still, little or nothing is going to happen.

One thing I've learned from watching North Korea since 1993 that these analysts seem to have missed is that Korea, North and South, is inhabited by people who's instinct is to be orderly and obedient.

This is a survival habit that makes Korea different from Japan.

Historically, when Japan gets disorderly and chaotic, only the Koreans are in a position to bother them, and they rarely see benefit in doing so. (When Koreans are strong, they prefer expanding north and west.) So Japan's age of warlords and Samuri has no parallel in Korean history. When Koreans are weak the Han Chinese to the west, the Manchus or other barbarians to the north, or the Japanese to the west are ready willing and able to invade, loot and plunder.

So Korea's military and government are always more centralized than their neighbor's, and disaster always follows chaos and internal bickering. The most recent example was the Japanese colonization of Korea between 1900 and 1945. A significant step on the path to colonization was when a peasant revolt in southern Korea got out of hand in 1895, and the government called for foreign help. The Japanese came, crushed the revolt, and stayed.

(The Japanese also crushed Chinese troops also sent to quell the revolt. Even as the Europeans were carving up China, the Chinese government saw an opportunity in Korean weakness.)

When Korea was split, it unintentionally gave the Koreans the opportunity to experiment with the two major themes for "saving Korea" that had split Korean leadership before the colonial period: a) learn from the outsiders and grow strong by embracing the best of their ideas. b) defend the nation by developing even stronger national will and with purely Korean thinking.

South Koreans embraced plan A, and North Koreans embraced plan B. Even today, North Koreans are proud of what they have accomplished following "pure Korean" ideals: the philosophy of Juiche.

Situation today: North Korea can't win a thing attacking the south. They know it. The North Korean Army has been underfunded for years, and they have no allies. The Army could fight for what... two weeks, a month? Then it runs out of oil and ammo, rolls over and dies.

The army can hurt someone who attacks North Korea, but without an ally, it can no longer even seriously threaten the south.

The army can threaten North Korean civilians, but it doesn't have to. The civilians know that there are strong enemies ringing North Korea. If either the military or the civilians they, the country is lost.

I first realized this when I saw the aftermath of Kim Il-Sung's death. Korea watchers were expecting his death to open the lid for a messy powerplay while North Korean leaders sorted themselves out. There was no disorder in Korea, none. At first I couldn't believe it. But after it did happen that way, I started thinking about why, and fear of the consiquences of disorder was the answer I came up with.

So, what will North Korea do about this crisis? I don't know, but whatever it is, it will be as orderly as the society can manage, and it won't involve attacking the south.

That's what my crystal ball sees.