38 North is a program of the Stimson Center analyzing North Korea, using satellite imagery and expert commentary on its military, technology, and politics.
HN commenters point to it as a go-to source for readers interested in North Korea; the comments give no detailed opinion of it.
It was a question - so you agree waiting isn't an option (any more). I think to have an effective negotiation, you have to first "clear the air" in a sense that you aren't going to kow-tow to Kim, or pretend that he's anything other than exactly what he is. There's no future for the regime currently leading NK, so any real negotiation is actually targeting whoever is going to replace Kim. Taunting him (and watching how he responds) is a calculated part of this process.
The unanimous UN resolution, and the executive order which backed it up last week I think speak for themselves. [1] I don't agree with 38North's conclusions but they describe the order itself fairly well. I doubt very much that China will come out on DPRK's side at the end of this; we will get just enough out of Rocket Man to justify any strike in China's eyes.
I think people are putting far too much weight on an op-ed if they think China will militarily defend NK. What China is doing is walking back their mutual defense treaty from 1961 to make it clear that NK is on their own if they provoke an attack. They want to keep a deterrent in place as much as possible against a first strike against NK, but I think the reality is that China won't be there with tanks, missiles, or troops when NK falls. Or if they are, it's because they are the ones taking over. Come to think of it, I'm sure we would happily pay China $100+ billion in trade allowances if they would do us the favor.
My personal opinion is that if we…
>No, but China would, and even North Korea's conventional threat against South Korea would.
Both these things exist now, and the war hawks are still pressing for war.
>A non-nuclear PRNK has nothing to fear from the USA, because China loves its North Korean buffer against South Korea, and will not let anything happen to it.
They do have everything to fear of China, and still could be a bargaining chip in some future deal between China and the US. They tried the whole "rely on a superpower" thing before, the USSR attempted to remove Kim Il-sung from power then the eventual collapse devastated the economy. The Juche philosophy exists for a reason.
>If KJU wanted to be a responsible leader, it seems to me that he would drop his nuclear and icbm programs, come up with a narrative for why that was necessary (or simply lie to his people and launch short-range rockets all the time to maintain a facade of continued progress), accept international aid and modernization,
Like they tried in the nineties and 00's, only to have the US reneg on the deals? [1] Or like they have constantly said they would be willing to do over the past several months? [2] That bridge is ablaze if not already burnt.
>KJU doesn't appear to want to be a responsible or rational leader, nor does he want to help his people
His main priority is maintaining power, this is hardly unique. Betterment of his citizens is a secondary goal, the Songun ideology isn't really a secret.
>It seems like he wants the…
You're actually in a better position than you think.
Check out the history of Brown Moses, and Bellingcat:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliot_Higgins
"Higgins' analyses of Syrian weapons, which began as a hobby out of his home in his spare time, are frequently cited by the press and human rights groups and have led to parliamentary discussion."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellingcat
"Bellingcat (stylized as bell¿ngcat) is an investigative journalism website that specializes in fact-checking and open-source intelligence (OSINT). It was founded by British journalist and former blogger Eliot Higgins in July 2014. Bellingcat publishes the findings of both professional and citizen journalist investigations into war zones, human rights abuses, and the criminal underworld. The site's contributors also publish guides to their techniques, as well as case studies."
Check out some of the work being done peering into North Korea as well for ideas e.g.:
"North Korea’s Yongbyon Nuclear Center: Flood Damage Repairs Underway"
https://www.38north.org/2020/10/yongbyon201022/
There is probably a lot to be learned from constructing various elements of an open-source intelligence pipeline that uses software to aggregate information from dissidents, analyze satellite imagery to identify concentration camps, provide encryption, translation, etc.
That does sound a bit agressive. To be clear, South Korea doesn't so much 'claim the entirety of the Korean Peninsula' as much as it aims to unify the entire peninsula into a single country through peaceful means (at least, since the military government left power in the late '80s).
This article is also from 2021 and things have changed a bit in the North. North Korea changed their constitution a couple of years ago and removed any mention of unification with the South, and defined their territory as basically the existing North/South split (aka 38th parallel). South Korea has been redefined from 'partner in national unity' to 'enemy to be destroyed, by nuclear weapons if need be'.
There's a lot of pretty interesting analysis of North Korea at the 38 North blog (https://www.38north.org/), among other good sources.
Those numbers are a joke. They're the most secretive country in the world and they don't really share economic data. It really can't be overstated just how much wild guesswork is involved in coming up with those figures.
An economist weighs in here: https://www.38north.org/2012/07/rfrank071612/
Moreover, most institutions will systematically under rather than overestimate their economic activity from what scraps of data they do have. You wouldn't, after all, win political capital in the UN or the CIA by declaring the north korean economic model to be more successful than it really is... nobody wants to hear that.
As someone who has professional experience running/developing cyberwarfare and nuclear military operations with the US military, I can unequivocally state that the work I did at PUST was not developing these capabilities for North Korea.
Western experts who study the DPRK largely agree with me that educational exchanges are a great way to improve relations between the US and DPRK, building on the model of how educational exchanges improved relations between the US and USSR. See for example https://www.38north.org/2010/11/pyongyang-university-and-nk-just-do-it/