Why North Korea's collapse is inevitable

The recent exchange of fire at the South Korean border is the latest evidence that Kim Jong Un's regime is faltering

Kim Jong Un
(Image credit: REUTERS/KCNA)

The world is rightly abuzz with the news that South Korea and North Korea exchanged artillery fire this week. The decades-old conflict in the Korean Peninsula remains one of the world's major flashpoints, and North Korea is easily the world's most demonic regime (unless you count ISIS as a regime).

The conflict is largely seen in terms of geopolitics, but it would really make more sense to look at it from the perspective of North Korea's domestic politics. Totalitarian regimes are mostly driven either by ideology or internal politics, not realpolitik as much. Nazi ideology was a better predictor of Germany's actions under the Third Reich than realpolitik considerations (which was the great mistake that both Neville Chamberlain and Joseph Stalin made in their dealings with Hitler).

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Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry

Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry is a writer and fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. His writing has appeared at Forbes, The Atlantic, First Things, Commentary Magazine, The Daily Beast, The Federalist, Quartz, and other places. He lives in Paris with his beloved wife and daughter.