Open Sources, August 6, 2012
DON KIRK HAS JUST RETURNED from a trip to Pyongyang and Hamhung, and files a series of stories and commentaries (see also here and here). Kirk sees modest improvements in the standard of living in Pyongyang, but doesn’t think he knows what’s really going on behind the facade, or that any of his journalist colleagues really do, either. He seems skeptical about the regime’s sincerity about any deeper commitment to reform and openness. That sounds about right to me, but don’t miss his reports.
* But aren’t they all, to one degree or another?
COULD IT BE TRUE? Well, of course it could be true, even if it’s still unproven, and it isn’t likely to be true until North Korea becomes as desperate as, say, Stalin was when he launched his “New Economic Policy” during an interlude of famine when he thought his regime might not survive. This Open News report claims that even officers in front-line North Korean military units are going hungry. If that report is true, then North Korea might be desperate enough to launch reforms, but they might be too little, too late.
THAT’S GOING TO LEAVE A MARK: An commenter shows us how to fisk baseless, wishful, and speculative commentary about North Korea.
FLOODING REVEALS CHINA’S growing credibility gap with its own people.
GREAT PROTEST POSTERS from a little Syrian village.
ARE IRANIAN REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS fighting in Syria? If they are, and if we’re seeing some of them in this video, it doesn’t speak well of their battlefield prowess against armed opponents.
Lenin introduced the New Economic Policy in 1921; Stalin shut it down in 1928.
Fair point, although Stalin supported the NEP over Trotsky’s opposition, and maintained the NEP for several years after Lenin’s death. More to the point, I don’t think any of that detracts from the utility of the example.