North Korea is heading for a cataclysmic collapse — and nobody cares
Everybody seems to see this as a chess game. It's not. It's a ticking time-bomb.


A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
Thank you for signing up to TheWeek. You will receive a verification email shortly.
There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again.
The short-term questions about North Korea's alleged nuclear test are important. Has there been a real test? What does this mean for the regime's position? Is Kim Jong Un still trying to consolidate power by pandering to the hardliners of his regime? How will China react?
All of these are important questions. But all of them distract from the fundamental issue anyone must address to discuss North Korea seriously: It's not a question of if North Korea will collapse, but when.
The regime cannot go on indefinitely. It is astonishingly corrupt and criminal. Even if it wanted to, it probably couldn't manage a China-style policy of opening up its economy to raise people's standards of living while maintaining an authoritarian government to prevent societal collapse. The technocratic know-how simply isn't there. And the only thing holding the regime together is absolute fear, and the total brain-washing of the population — brainwashing which is slowly dissolving as, inevitably, mobile phones and media, including Bibles, seep into the country.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
When it does eventually collapse, it will be a humanitarian disaster on a scale perhaps not seen since World War II. North Korea's people are famished. To say that alcoholism is rampant is an understatement.
Millions of refugees will stream over the borders. On one side, there's China and Russia, who aren't exactly global models of efficiency and humanitarianism. South Korea is a highly-advanced economy — indeed, in some areas, more advanced than the U.S. — but it's still a small nation ill-prepared to cope with the collapse of its similar-sized neighbor.
The fall will be a humanitarian disaster, but it will also be a security nightmare. North Korea's military arsenal, though aged, and probably mostly out of repair, is still enormous, and we should expect warlords to emerge. But this is nothing compared, of course, to the risk related to North Korea's nuclear arsenal, which is still a huge mystery. Do you think ISIS would like to buy a nuclear weapon? Do you think nobody in North Korea would sell it to them?
These are just a few of the most pressing realities concerning North Korea. But it seems to me that the vast majority of policymakers ignore them in the interest of maintaining the status quo for as long as possible — a situation that will only worsen the inevitable. But why should policymakers do otherwise? Much better to keep a lid on the problem until their term is over.
I've argued previously that the responsible solution is a military-humanitarian intervention that would secure North Korea's military arsenal and create the conditions for a better future for North Koreans — an administration that would transition the economy towards a freer system and, ultimately, reunite North Korea with South Korea. I think China could be brought on board if America demilitarized Korean Peninsula in exchange.
There's a lot to say about this plan — there are many things that could go wrong with it, and it would be very hard to pull off. But at least it's a plan.
That's the thing that brings me despair: Nobody seems to be thinking about how to actually improve the situation in North Korea. More fundamentally, nobody seems to be thinking about how bad things truly are or how plausible, indeed inevitable, the worst-case scenario is.
Everybody seems to be seeing this as a chess game. It's not. It's a ticking time-bomb, with millions of hostages. Trying to play the opponent to a draw by dragging your heels might or might not be a good strategy in chess, depending on the game. But thinking that a ticking bomb will go away if you just wait it out is folly.
Let's find a way to defuse it.
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.
Sign up to our 10 Things You Need to Know Today newsletter
A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
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.
-
Should you fire your financial adviser? 4 signs it's time to say goodbye.
The Explainer Breakups are never fun, but you have to protect your wallet
By Becca Stanek Published
-
The daily gossip: Man arrested in connection with shooting of Tupac Shakur, an OceanGate movie is in the works, and more
Feature The daily gossip: September 29, 2023
By Brendan Morrow Published
-
What to expect from an El Niño winter
The Explainer Things might be different thanks to this well-known weather phenomenon
By Devika Rao Published
-
Europe's oldest shoes found in Spanish caves
Tall Tales And other stories from the stranger side of life
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK Published
-
Artworks stolen by Nazis returned to heirs of cabaret performer
It wasn't all bad Good news stories from the past seven days
By The Week Staff Published
-
Squirrel kebabs on London menu
Tall Tales And other stories from the stranger side of life
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK Published
-
Drug could allow you to 'grow new teeth'
Tall Tales And other stories from the stranger side of life
By Chas Newkey-Burden Published
-
Woman reunited with egg she signed in 1951
It Wasn't All Bad Good news stories from the past seven days
By The Week Staff Published
-
10 things you need to know today: September 16, 2023
Daily Briefing Ripple effects seen throughout auto industry as UAW strikes, Lee expected to bring flooding and storm winds to New England, and more
By Justin Klawans Published
-
American rescued after 12 days in Turkish cave
It wasn't all bad Good news stories from the past seven days
By The Week Staff Published
-
What Mexico’s first female president might mean for the ‘femicide nation’
feature The Latin American country is grappling with misogynist crime amid a backdrop of progress for women in politics
By Rebekah Evans Published