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by Dr.
Michael J. Deane
Abstract
If
tomorrow’s media headlines were to announce the demise
of North Korea, how would Americans react? Arguably, our
initial response would be elation and rejoice that this volatile
and hostile state, which threatens mankind with nuclear catastrophe
and has starved millions of its own citizens to death, was no
more. The Korean people, the Northeast Asian region, and
the world as a whole would certainly feel safer for the loss. Except
for the radical fringe, no one would shed a tear, no communist
or non-communist, no Korean or non-Korean, no liberal or conservative.
For
the past two decades, US decision-makers have molded our policy
toward North Korea on two premises: first, the popular
notion that North Korea is teetering on the brink of imminent
systemic collapse and, second, the unquestioned assumption that
such a collapse is in the best interest of the United States. In
the mid-1980s, neither government experts nor academic analysts
would have entertained the prospect of a DPRK continuing into
the year 2005. Yet, very little effort has been devoted
to understanding why we were wrong for twenty years. Even
less effort is expended on reassessing US interests in a North
Korean collapse, the range of options open to US policy in shaping
the future of the DPRK, and the long-term implications for the
United States.
This
short analysis seeks to identify the factors that led North Korean
viewers of the late 1980s and early
1990s to forecast the North’s collapse, identify the basic
fallacies that led these predictions astray, and the on-going prospects
for a collapse in the future. From these perspectives, the
work assesses whether a future collapse of North Korea is in the
best interest of the United States.
Table of Contents
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Preface
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Historical Perspectives
on North Korea
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Predictions
of DPRK Collapse
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Theoretical
Fallacy
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Practical Fallacy
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The DPRK Future
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DPRK Futures
and US Policy Options
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Key Issue for
US Policy-Makers
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Soft
Landing vs. Hard Landing Options: Benefits and Pitfalls
in a US Policy Context
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The
Korean Peninsula Without a DPRK: The True Endgame
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Bibliography
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Warfare Analysis