Been Germane Franc Lend

Been Germane Franc Lend

We see here Franc Lend's theory of electricity as being composed of two colors - the red and the black - a theory reflected in the red and black wires used in electrical wiring today (along with a variable third color that Franc Lend didn't know about because the anti-Americans of Franc Lend's day kept the color a secret from him.)

We thus see how important Franc Lend's theory is even today, once again evidence of American technological and scientific superiority!

Russia was right?

Vladimir Putin
Wikipedia

Writing for The Spectator in "How Putin outwitted the West" (10 October 2015), the historian and writer Owen Matthews tells us that Russia was right:

Russia was right about Iraq and Libya, and America and Britain were dead wrong. Regime change doesn't seem to have changed Middle Eastern countries for the better, as Vladimir Putin has been warning for years. His policy is not to support any armed groups 'that attempt to resolve internal problems through force' - by which he means rebels, 'moderate' or otherwise. In his words, the Kremlin always has 'a nasty feeling that if such armed groups get support from abroad, the situation can end up deadlocked. We never know the true goals of these "freedom fighters" and we are concerned that the region could descend into chaos.'

Yet after a decade and a half of scolding the West for non-UN-sanctioned military interventions, Putin has now unilaterally committed Russian forces to what the former CIA director General David Petraeus calls the 'geopolitical Chernobyl' of Syria. Russia finds itself allied with Syria, Iraq and Iran - a new 'coalition' no less, as Syria's president Bashar al-Assad described it on Iranian state TV last week. How and why did Putin fail to take his own advice about the unintended consequences that breed in middle-eastern quagmires? And most importantly, how has he managed - so far at least - to make Russia's intervention in Syria into something close to a diplomatic triumph?

Russia's decisive intervention has left Barack Obama and David Cameron looking weak and confused. When the usually steadfastly patriotic readers of the New York Daily News were asked whether Putin or Obama had 'the stronger arguments', 96 per cent said Putin. In Britain even hawks like Sir Max Hastings - no friend of the Kremlin - are arguing that Russia can help beat Isis. And most importantly, Putin stole the show at the United Nations General Assembly last month with an impassioned speech denouncing the whole US-backed project of democracy in the Middle East at its very root.

The Arab Spring has been a catastrophe, Putin argued, and the western countries who encouraged Arab democrats to rise against their corrupt old rulers opened a Pandora's box of troubles. 'Instead of the triumph of democracy and progress, we got violence, poverty and social disaster,' he told assembled delegates, in remarks aimed squarely at the White House. 'Nobody cares about human rights, including the right to life. I cannot help asking those who have forced this situation, do you realise what you have done?' It was quite a sight: a Russian president taking the moral high ground against an American president - and getting away with it . . . . But fundamentally, Putin is much more interested in being seen to project Russian power than in fixing Syria's war. His aim is to hold up Britain and America as paper tigers whose indecision has created a policy vacuum on Syria, into which Putin has confidently stepped. The Russian operation is small and portable enough for Putin to be able to roll it up in a week - and declare victory if and when the going gets tough. That, as he knows, is more than Britain and America have been able to do in any of our recent wars.

Matthews argues that Russia is not entirely consistent in sending forces to Syria - to say the least - but Putin doesn't have to be consistent. He just needs to show Obama as weak and the US a paper tiger, and he thinks that whatever weakens the US is good for Russia, plus he can always claim to be cleaning up what Obama broke.

This might work in the short run, but will Russia look tough if it abruptly pulls out under pressure? Or will Russia double down?

Ronald J. Granieri on a True Quote for the EU: Franz Josef Strauß

Franz Josef Strauß (1982)
(September 6, 1915 - October 3, 1988)
Wikipedia

I've just read Ronald J. Granieri's "Europe: What Went Wrong?" (E-Notes, January 2015), and amidst the problems that threaten the European project, Granieri notes at least one undeniable truth, a truth uttered by the German politician Franz Josef Strauß, who despite numerous brushes with scandal and despite his Bavarian provincialism, considered himself, above all, a European:

One hears the skeptics more, of course, especially in [the US] . . . , and especially among those who consider themselves to be practical realists. They dismiss Europe as a chimera and praise the nation-state, even as individual European nation-states obviously cannot stand up to the continental challenges of China, Russia, India, and even the United States - none of which are nation-states on the classical European model. We do not have any leaders of the practical stature of the great Bavarian conservative statesman Franz Josef Strauss, who rejected "the idea that any European state - no matter its name, no matter how glorious its history, no matter how impressive its traditions - will be recognized in Moscow as an equal partner. One cannot ignore the laws of mathematics."

I count myself among those who want the EU project to succeed - one of the reasons being the one noted above in the words of Franz Josef Strauß, that only Europe as a whole has sufficient weight for dealing not only with Russia, but also with China, India, and even the US - but I think that Islamist-driven Islamization (within and without Europe) is not taken seriously enough by Granieri. If the EU fails, we may be watching not merely the collapse of one, but rather of two intertwined civilizations, Western and Islamic . . .

Samsung Didn't Steal Apple's Design, Just Borrowed It for a Bit

Lee Kun-hee and Steve Jobs in a Friendly Spat
Vanity Fair - June 2014

In the June 2014 issue of Vanity Fair, Kurt Eichenwald reports on "The Great Smartphone War," Apple's legal battles with Samsung, which began after Apple's designers had studied, in mid-2010, Samsung's Galaxy S, which they concluded was outright piracy, a copy of Apple's iPhone:

The overall appearance of the phone, the screen, the icons, even the box looked the same as the iPhone's. Patented features such as "rubber-banding," in which a screen image bounces slightly when a user tries to scroll past the bottom, were identical. Same with "pinch to zoom," which allows users to manipulate image size by pinching the thumb and forefinger together on the screen. And on and on.

Could be coincidence. Apple didn't think so, and took action on August 4, 2010:

Jobs decided to take the gloves off. Hence the meeting in Seoul. The Apple executives were escorted to a conference room high in the Samsung Electronics Building, where they were greeted by about half a dozen Korean engineers and lawyers. Dr. Seungho Ahn, a Samsung vice president, was in charge, according to court records and people who attended the meeting. After some pleasantries, Chip Lutton, then Apple's associate general counsel for intellectual property, took the floor and put up a PowerPoint slide with the title "Samsung's Use of Apple Patents in Smartphones." Then he went into some of the similarities he considered especially outrageous, but the Samsung executives showed no reaction. So Lutton decided to be blunt.

"Galaxy copied the iPhone," he said.

"What do you mean, copied?" Ahn replied.

"Exactly what I said," Lutton insisted. "You copied the iPhone. The similarities are completely beyond the possibility of coincidence."

Samsung didn't agree, and apparently had nothing to hide. Nothing in particular:

One day in March 2011, cars carrying investigators from Korea's anti-trust regulator pulled up outside a Samsung facility in Suwon, about 25 miles south of Seoul. They were there ready to raid the building, looking for evidence of possible collusion between the company and wireless operators to fix the prices of mobile phones.

Before the investigators could get inside, security guards approached and refused to let them through the door. A standoff ensued, and the investigators called the police, who finally got them inside after a 30-minute delay. Curious about what had been happening in the plant as they cooled their heels outside, the officials seized video from internal security cameras. What they saw was almost beyond belief.

Upon getting word that investigators were outside, employees at the plant began destroying documents and switching computers, replacing the ones that were being used -- and might have damaging material on them -- with others.

Pure coincidence. The activity was just in line with Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee's long-standing advice that Samsung employees change everything except for their wives and children. Obviously, they were changing with the times.

As for stealing Apple's design, that is better described as "borrowing," for as Eichenwald points out, Samsung's corporate strategy was to "countersue [Apple], . . . [t]hen, as the litigation dragged on, snap up a greater share of the market and settle" out of court after "develop[ing] new and better phones throughout the litigation to the point where . . . the Korean company is . . . a strong competitor on the technology and not just a copycat anymore."

See? Not stealing. Just borrowing.

An Encounter: ROK Squads Fresh from Exercises Near Uijeongbu?

Quirky Frog Fountain
Amphibious Exercise?
Not ROK Soldiers!
Visit Seoul

I can hardly yet still scarcely grasp that, due to my heavy workload, well over a year had passed since my previous bike ride (a serious one, I mean), but truth is that only on Thursday two days ago did I actually find time for a long longed-for long ride along the long nearby Jungnang Stream (Jungnangcheon: 중랑천), a tributary of Seoul's Han River. I've written before about bike trips along this urban-to-rural-to-urban stream. Although I start out from our apartment, I first enter the bike path along the stream just over the levee from the quirky frog fountain seen above. From that point, everything's uphill as I ride upstream several kilometers to the the familiar pathside beer place, which I finally revisited the day before yesterday, too.

But some kilometers along the way, just after reaching the bridge that I always take in crossing the stream, I encountered a squad of Korean soldiers walking single-file behind an officer and a flagman -- maybe ten to fifteen men -- soon followed by another squad with a different flag, then another, and another, and another, and on and on, the soldiers bearing arms, a few even bazookas! I must have passed more than 200, maybe more than 300. Could have been 500. If I'd been more alert, I'd have counted the flags and calculated from that number. They were all heading south as I biked north in the direction of Uijeongbu.

Something was going on, an exercise of some sort, but I only found out yesterday in my copy of Korean Peninsula Through the Lens (KPTL, Volume V, Issue 97, Friday, 17 May 2013):

A South Korean soldier cleans his gun after a CBR (chemical, biological and radiological) warfare training at Yeoncheon, Gyeonggi Province, north of Seoul on May 16, 2013. Held between Korean and U.S. military, the exercise is meant to affirm and improve their joint management system.

That explanation came with a photo, but I could neither copy nor link to it, so here's the link to a different site showing scenes of the same exercise (which I also couldn't copy). Here's yet another site, which allowed copying.

This is from Tempo (May 16, 2013), in an article titled "Anticipation of Chemical Weapons":

U.S. soldiers scan two South Korean soldiers during their decontamination training against possible chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats at Steel Zenith Field Training Exercise in Yeoncheon (16/5). REUTERS/Lee Jae-Won

Yeoncheon is north of Seoul (as noted in KPTL), further north than Uijeongbu, but the latter also has a lot of U.S. and Korean military bases to account for what I saw, though I didn't notice any gas masks, and my impression was that the soldiers were finished with an exercise of some sort.

That encounter reminded me that this divided peninsula remains not entirely at peace . . .

What North Korea Wants to Gain by Threats of Nuclear War

Kim Jong-un with Scepter
"Oh . . . right. That's west. I forgot we're North Korea."
Picture: AP
April 4, 2013
Metro News

Does North Korea want war?

Family and friends back in the States and other places have been sending me worried emails, asking if I'm afraid the North Korean regime might start a war, so I thought I might as well quell the fears of others by assuring everybody that war is the last thing that North Korea wants since that would likely bring its entire system down, thereby ending the elite's luxurious lifestyle and effectively rendering them powerless and subject to judgment for their crimes against their own people.

But if they don't want war, what's all the bluster about?

It's an old game carried to unprecedented extremes this time. For too long, the North would fabricate a crisis whenever it needed food aid or political concessions or something else from the outside world. The world would grow alarmed and offer something. The North would accept and be on good behavior for a while . . . until it needed something new, when it would fabricate another crisis.

But why are they sounding so much more extreme this time?

Two reasons.

First, the game isn't working this time because everybody's figured out how it works and everyone now refuses to play the game, so the North is trying harder to scare everybody into fearing the bluster is genuine.

Second, Kim Jong-un needs to look tough, and what's more, given his youth and inexperience, he has to look even tougher to get the respect of the military, the party, and the people.

So . . . has he gone too far to back down since he's receiving nothing from the outside world?

He hasn't gone too far, and he won't have to back down at all. He has claimed that the yearly, routine, defensive Field Training Exercise (FTX) conducted by South Korea and the United States is a preparation for invasion of the North using nuclear weapons, so when this exercise is finished, he will be able to claim that North Korea's resolve and military power, based on its own nuclear weapons program, intimidated the imperialistic Americans and saved the North from invasion.

That's how I see things, so you can all stop worrying about me . . . unless Kim Jong-un miscalculates, goes insane, or turns out to be really, really stupid.

In which case, thanks for your loyal readership . . .

Kanan Makiya's Mea Culpa?

Saddam Toppled
April 9, 2003
Goran Tomasevic/Reuters
NYT

Kanan Makiya, professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at Brandeis University and the author of Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq, which I'm familiar with, and Cruelty and Silence: War, Tyranny, Uprising, and the Arab World, which I don't know, has written an article, "The Arab Spring Started in Iraq" (The New York Times, April 6, 2013), expressing a degree of regret for his role in getting the US involved in the Iraq War:

Both the George W. Bush administration and the Iraqi expatriate opposition to Mr. Hussein -- myself included -- grossly underestimated those costs [of the war's aftermath] in the run-up to the 2003 war. The Iraqi state, we failed to realize, had become a house of cards.

None of these errors of judgment were necessarily an argument against going to war if you believed, as I do, that overthrowing Mr. Hussein was in the best interests of the Iraqi people. The calculus looks different today if one's starting point is American national interest. I could not in good conscience tell an American family grieving for a son killed in Iraq that the war "was worth it."

We didn't know then what we know today. Some, including many of my friends, warned of the dangers of American hubris. I did not heed them in 2003.

But the greater hubris is to think that what America does or doesn't do is all that matters. The blame for the catastrophe of post-2003 Iraq must be placed on the new Iraqi political elite. The Shiite political class, put in power by the United States, preached a politics of victimhood and leveraged the state to enrich itself. These leaders falsely identified all Sunni Iraqis with Baathists, forgetting how heavily all Iraqis, including some Shiites, were implicated in the criminality of Mr. Hussein's regime.

Although I always feared, and warned in 1993, that the emergence of sectarian strife was a risk after Mr. Hussein's fall, my greatest misjudgment was in hoping that Iraq's new leaders would act for the collective Iraqi good.

I think we've all emerged from the Iraq experience wiser, if sadder. I remember that Kanan Makiya analyzed the 9/11 hijackers' so-called 'suicide note' and demonstrated its meaning as a religious document, but I also recall him from my Berkeley days in the 1980s, when my friend and flatmate Scott Corey, writing a doctoral thesis on political violence, read his book Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq and talked to me about it. That was a different world, a time of great hope in the future, when a man named Fukuyama could promise the end of history as the passing of political violence and the onset of a capitalist, democratic peace, and one could imagine that even Saddam Hussein would be peaceably gone with the winds of changes. But then came the Gulf War , then Bosnia, then 9/11, then Afghanistan and Iraq, and the future now looks like a quagmire in which we'll be stuck fighting Islamists for God knows how long.

It's enough to make one wish to stand "athwart history, yelling Stop," except that there's no place to stand, and history won't stop, for "a storm is blowing from Paradise," blowing so forcefully that we're all of us -- Buckleys and Benjamins -- being swept helplessly along . . .

China's 'Policy' Toward North Korea

China

Wikipedia

Hanyang University law professor Lee Jae-min asks a good question in his Korea Herald column this week: "Why do we keep losing this game?" (March 20, 2013). By that, he means why does North Korea continue to have the advantage over South Korea in getting what it wants in its nuclear aims. Part of the answer is China, which is the North's ally, of course, and supports it for that reason, but more important than the alliance is China's fear that enforcing sanctions on the North could precipitate its collapse and destabilize Northeast Asia. Professor Lee knows all this, of course. But things have changed since the North's third nuclear test recently, he notes, and he offers a suggestion:

Perhaps one thing to consider in this regard is how to make Beijing fully aware that an unbridled, nuclear-armed North Korea would undermine its national interest. In light of this, it is interesting to watch the reportedly growing complaints in China against North Korea after its nuclear test.

This ought to be simple enough since a nuclear-armed North Korea is very destabilizing for Northeast Asia, but China should have recognized this twenty years ago, when we already knew that the North was pursuing a nuclear program. Individual Chinese did see the problem, and commented on it as against China's interests, but the Chinese government was less clear. Why has the Chinese leadership failed? Seton Hall University professor of international relations Zheng Wang asks a pertinent question in the New York Times: "Does China Have a Foreign Policy?" (March 18, 2013). Here's what he says:

While many Western analysts focus on the balance of reformers and conservatives in China's new leadership, most overlook the absence of career diplomats and foreign affairs experts at the highest level of power in Beijing . . . . [T]he position that foreign policy occupies in the Chinese political system is very low . . . . China watchers have a tendency to overstate the sophistication of Beijing's foreign policy and ambitions, but the truth is that China's foreign policy is highly deficient . . . . The absence of clear policy . . . partly explains why China lacks decisive influence even over strategic allies who depend most on its support, like North Korea . . . . North Korea's recent nuclear test and decision to nullify the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War is but the latest example. If a country [such as China] does not have a clear foreign policy, it will not know when, where and how to use its power. It cannot provide a road map for its allies to follow.

If Professor Wang is right, then helping Beijing see its national interests in the North Korean conundrum might prove difficult.

We can only try . . .

Deng Yuwen and China's Relations toward North Korea

Deng Yuwen
"'Give up on Pyongyang,' says China insider"

JoongAng Daily

According to Deng Yuwen, deputy editor of Study Times, journal of the Central Party School of China's Communist Party, in an article, "China should abandon North Korea," written for the Financial Times (February 27, 2013), China should cut North Korea loose, especially since the North's recent nuclear test. Why? Five reasons:

First, a relationship between states based on ideology is dangerous.

Ostensibly, China's foreign relations should be based on China's national interests.

Second, basing China's strategic security on North Korea's value as a geopolitical ally is outdated.

North Korea offers not security, but insecurity! Its provocative actions draw animosity toward China.

Third, North Korea will not reform and open up to the world.

If the North reforms, it will collapse. Why should China support a regime that will eventually fail?

Fourth, North Korea is pulling away from Beijing.

Why hold to close relations with a regime that shows no gratitude to China, a regime that has even excised from its history China's support during the Korean War?

Last, once North Korea has nuclear weapons, it cannot be ruled out that the capricious Kim regime will engage in nuclear blackmail against China.

The North shows actual animosity toward China, implicitly using its nuclear card against the Chinese. Deng's conclusion:

Considering these arguments, China should consider abandoning North Korea. The best way of giving up on Pyongyang is to take the initiative to facilitate North Korea's unification with South Korea. Bringing about the peninsula's unification would help undermine the strategic alliance between Washington, Tokyo and Seoul; ease the geopolitical pressure on China from northeast Asia; and be helpful to the resolution of the Taiwan question.

This would probably work for China only if US troops were withdrawn from the Korean Peninsula, as Deng makes clear in an interview with the JoongAng Daily. That might be worth the result . . .

Vasiliy Mikheyev on a "Crucial Moment" with Respect to North Korea

Drunken Clown Kim Jong-un
Patrick Chappatte
February 13, 2013

New York Times

An interesting article, "If They Fire? The Nuclear Threat Emanating From North Korea Is Coming To Be Real," (Moskovskiye Novosti in Russian, 02/18/13 (translated and released 02/20/13)), has appeared in the Korea Open Source Digest, Volume VI, Issue 35, Thursday, February 21, 2013, a rather long article by Vasiliy Mikheyev, a Korea specialist and a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, also the deputy director of the Russian Academy of Sciences World Economy and International Relations Institute, so he appears to be a knowledgeable fellow, a man worth listening to when he suggests that we have entered a crucial moment with respect to North Korea. He offers a comparison:

The problem of Pyongyang is reminiscent of the problem of a hooligan terrorizing a crowd of the intelligentsia. They try to admonish, persuade, and educate him and to resolve the problem "only diplomatically" and so forth. But all this is until the time when the hooligan inflicts real bodily harm on one of the crowd. (page 5-17)

At that timely moment, I infer, the crowd would take collective action to beat the hooligan senseless and thereby knock sense into him. What does Mikheyev suggest? Let's see:

In regard to the DPRK the "time," it would seem, has come - this is a crucial moment in the development of the DPRK's nuclear program.

The present situation is a challenge to the principal world responsible nuclear powers (Russia, the United States, China) with common interests: preventing Pyongyang becoming the possessor of nuclear weapons. The concurrence of interests permits us to pose the issue of taking advantage of the situation for a breakthrough in the development of tripartite political and military cooperation of Russia, the United States, and China. (page 5-17)

Mikheyev even considers pinpoint missile strikes by the US and implies that Russia and China might agree to such strikes. Make of this what you will. Time will tell if he is right . . .

Muslim Brotherhood's Plans for the West?

Investigative Project on Terrorism

I've long been aware of the investigative journalist Steven Emerson, who has looked into radical Islamism in the West since the early 1990s, especially in the United States. He founded an archive in 1995 on Islamist groups, the Investigative Project on Terrorism, which has among its files a widely known Islamist memo by the Muslim radical Mohamed Akram on pdf file, "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America" (May 19, 1991). This is a fifteen-page Arabic document followed by an eighteen-page English translation in which Akram sets forth his detailed plan for Islam in America. One section is labeled Understanding the Role of the Muslim Brother in America, by which he means the role of the "Muslim Brotherhood," -- though Akram seems not to distinguish clearly between Muslim Brother and ordinary Muslim -- and in which he states the following:

The process of settlement [in America] is a "Civilization-Jihadist Process" with all the word means. The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions. Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim's destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny except for those who chose to slack. But, would the slackers and the Mujahedeen be equal.

This is written for a broadly conceived jihad -- "with all the word means," Akram tells us, and since the word means "struggle," then he intends to see it applied to all of its traditional uses, from inner spiritual struggle to active proselytizing to outright battle. This is to be the American front in the Islamist attack on Western Civilization, and that memo was written nearly twenty-one years ago as an explanation of a long-term plan dating from 1987, so this Islamist goal is at least twenty-five years old. Read the entire memo to see just how ambitious this "Brotherhood" is.

The Ikhwan, or Muslim Brotherhood, will be familiar to those who have been keeping up with the Arab Spring as the weather has changed with the seasons to an Islamist Winter. The Brotherhood's members were the winners in the recent Egyptian election, and the group has a very professional website that shows their pleasant face under the name of the Freedom and Justice Party, but the terms "freedom" and "justice" have Islamic meanings delimited by sharia, Islamic law, which the FJP fully intends to implement, a legal system in which Muslim women have fewer rights than Muslim men, Christians and Jews have fewer rights than Muslims, and infidels have no rights as all, not even to mention the hudud laws stipulating beheading, stoning, amputation, and flogging for crimes against Allah.

That's what Islamist individuals like Mohamed Akram want for the US as well as for the broader West . . .

Puzzling Remarks on America's Foreign Policy

Anastasia Karklina

(Image from One Young World)

I read some rather puzzling remarks yesterday in Souad Mekhennet's column for the New York Times, "In Search of Common Ground Over Muslim Dress Codes" (September 20, 2011). Ms. Mekhennet was reporting on a forum held recently in Zurich by One Young World, an organization founded by David Jones and Kate Robertson. This is a nongovernmental organization with the following mantra: "For the first time in history, the young are seeing history made before it is censored by their elders." I guess this means that the young get to censor it first. Anyway, this forum reportedly "brought together about 1,600 people, mostly under 25, from 190 nations" to discuss common ground among people of all kinds and creeds. Apparently, everyone was happily agreeing on how we can all get along, when the discussion shifted a bit:

[A more conflictual] discussion was initiated by a resident of Latvia who is now studying politics at Duke University in North Carolina. Anastasia Karklina, 19, has most likely passed through enough social upheaval and heard enough pretty words in her life. So this non-Muslim went straight to her point: It was understandable, she said, that participants only wanted to discuss tolerance, and not reality. "In many Western countries," she opined, "the hatred against Islam is being used for justifying the foreign policy, especially in the U.S."

It is no use, she added, to debate war in the name of religion or to urge tolerance, without discussing the double standards in politics.

"How do we want to create an interfaith dialogue if they ban the burqa, discuss the headscarves, don't allow Muslims to build mosques and then even have a preacher who wanted to burn the Koran?" Ms. Karklina asked.

There followed an argument between two Muslims over the niqab -- one in favor of the freedom to wear it, the other in favor of banning it, giving as reason that "It is nowhere mentioned in Islam and does make our religion look bad."

That remark alone is an interesting point that deserves closer attention in light of various other things that make Islam "look bad" and could likewise be banned, but I would prefer to focus on Ms. Karklina's remarks -- which have puzzled me -- and merely pose a few questions:

What examples might be presented as evidence that US foreign policy is being justified by hatred against Islam? The Bosnian intervention that saved Muslims? The Kosovo intervention that saved Muslims? The war against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda? The war against Saddam Hussein? The support for the Libyan rebels against Muammar Gaddafi?

What "double standard" in politics does she mean? Assisting the 'revolutionaries' in their overthrow of Mubarak in Egypt vs. maintaining distance from the protesters seeking to overthrow Assad in Syria? Should we have the same standard for both cases?

Who is this "they" who want to ban burqas, discuss headscarves, forbid mosques, and have a preacher burn the Koran? Europeans? Americans? The West? That's a rather broad brush with which to paint "they"!

But I don't know, really, whom to blame for my puzzlement, Ms. Karklina for offering a 'censored' history by not being specific enough or Ms. Mekhennet for not reporting more fully due to careless journalism, but perhaps the latter is culpable, for in relating what Ms. Karklina 'opined,' she first identified the nineteen-year-old woman as Lithuanian, before correcting to Latvian through re-editing.

Incidentally, I'm guessing that Ms. Karklina is Latvian Russian based on the name "Anastasia," her Russian language skills, and the fact of Latvia's large Russian minority of 27.4 percent. That could also explain Ms. Karklina's vaguely anti-American remarks since Latvians are otherwise generally pro-American. But I'm merely speculating on this point, and there is, in fact, evidence of rising though diffuse anti-Americanism in Latvia in recent years.

And the source of her anti-Americanism doesn't matter anyway, just the fact of whether she is right or wrong in her views . . .

Blaming the Jews: Xin Yishan's 'Analysis'

Crystal Ball of China

(Image from Google Images)

As I've occasionally mentioned, I receive daily emails of the Korea Open Source Digest sent out by USFK J2, and I recently received Volume 4, Issue 114 (Friday, June 17, 2011), which had the following 'intriguing' analysis on the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East, "Feeling Pulse of US Recent Actions," by Xin Yishan for the Guangming Wang (original Chinese 6/06/11; translated and released 6/16/11):

The situation in the Middle East is complicated. Many social psychologists in the United States never expected that the "butterfly effect" at the beginning of the incident could lead to such large-scale social unrest. However, the United States is skillful in availing itself of every opportunity. In the evolution of the series of volatile unrest, we can clearly see the black hand of the United States using media reports, political backing, rumors, training of saboteurs, pamphlets for action, and the instigating of discontent behind the scenes. Obviously, the United States "contributed" to the chaos in the Middle East. Although the chaotic situation in the Middle East has been the result of direct US meddling, the strategy is also not significant. Creating problems and fishing in troubled waters has been the advantage of the United Kingdom and the United States, which is also a traditional experience for their successes. The Americans have integrated the habits of the Britons of wishing to see others thrown into confusion whenever possible. When the Middle East was thrown into disorder, fanning flames and creating confusion were the rules of behavior of the Americans. When there was no unrest, the Americans would want to create confusion, to say nothing of the signs of unrest that already existed. Reaping profit amid turmoil was the good experience of the Americans during the First and Second World Wars. Naturally, the Americans are cherishing the dream of the unrest in the Middle East leading to turmoil in Europe.

In other words: I don't know why the US fomented chaos in the Middle East since this isn't really in American interests, though clearly and obviously, the Americans manipulated events, so I assume that they flubbed their multitasking strategy of fishing in troubled waters while fanning flames of confusion and didn't expect their meddling to backfire, but the US will surely attempt to turn the confusion to advantage -- and the Americans probably wanted to harm Europe, too, but I'm not sure why, so maybe it's the Jews since I know that they don't like the Europeans:

The Jews in the United States had enough weight to promote chaos in the Middle East. Jewish strategists believe that unrest in the Middle East will expedite exhaustion within the Arab World and be conducive to the existence of Israel. For this reason, the research institutions controlled by the Jews make use of every opportunity to appropriately propose plans for US economic recovery. With the examples of World War I and World War II, they presented a lot of good sounding ideas, reminding US policymakers to make full use of the Middle East unrest to obtain benefits for the United States, such as attacking the euro to restore the status of the greenback. Naturally, US policymakers who are used to benefiting at the expense of others have acknowledged these selfish tricks. Therefore, we have witnessed the unrest now in the Middle East. The Americans are anxious to see unrest and the more chaotic the better. In light of the current military strength of the United States, it is absolutely capable of protecting a few nations. The United States would like to see great disorder in other regions of the Middle East.

In other words: I realize that the Jews in Israel expressed dismay as the Obama Administration slowly sided with the protesters against Mubarak, but that apparent dismay was just for show because the Jews actually control things in the US and therefore manipulated US policy to turn it against Mubarak, but the Jews are too foolish to see what is obvious, as I shall show, and they will thus be hoist by their own petard when its fuse is lit as they play with the fire fanned by the American fishing expedition:

The policymakers of Jewish origin similarly do not understand the truth that he who plays with fire will eventually burn himself. The chaotic situation in the Middle East will burn Israel in the long run and all the pressure will then focus on Israel. The existence of Israel will then be a big question. Although Israel appears to be very strong, the exhaustion of the protracted wars will wear it down. Wars and huge military spending can bring about a collapse of any big power, to say nothing of Israel which is a small nation.

In other words: Same as what I said earlier, above -- the Jews are manipulating the chaos fanned into flames in the Middle East by the American fishing team -- but I can again restate the point, throwing in a tidbit of Chinese wisdom along with my canny economic analysis on how the Americans want to sabotage the euro:

The unrest in the Middle East will temporarily benefit the United States but it is hard to say whether it will be to the advantage of the United States in the long run. The United States will also be dragged into the wars if it insists on resolutely backing Israel. It will be like lifting a rock to drop on one's own feet. Germany, France, and the Netherlands have benefited from the euro so they will not easily give up the euro. Therefore, the task will be very arduous for the Yankees to adopt any means to crush the euro.

In other words: Rocks dropped to scare fish into nets can splash up and douse flames of chaos, or they can land on one's own foot, too, and there is no need to repeat myself on how the US has so clearly worked to crush the euro as it multitasks among fishing for fracas, fanning furious flames, and flattening fine finance, so let me just note that the US and the Jews are plotting together on this point:

The chaotic situation in the Middle East is created by the US habitual behavior and Jewish plotters for their common interests and the continuous shaping of its evolution and tactical ground is under way. In my opinion, however, the chaotic situation in the Middle East is like a muddy, turbulent current and anyone trying to cross this muddy current is likely to be drowned. The best is yet to come and there will be something good for the Americans and the Israeli Jews. The unrest in the Middle East will drastically change into another wave against Israel.

In other words: These Jewish and American plotters are inadvertently plotting their own destruction . . . I hope.

Commentary: The writer, Xin Yishan, presents a clueless analysis. Or is he being deliberately obtuse? He offers no facts, and he has nearly everything wrong in his analysis. Neither the Americans nor the 'Jews' fomented the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa. The US and Israel were both surprised by the unrest, and both fear that Islamists might gain power, especially in Egypt, where they might, for instance, abrogate the Camp David Accords and Egypt's peace treaty with Israel.

Is Xin Yishan actually so clueless? Or being deliberately obtuse? Or is he falling prey to antisemitic paranoia and beginning to see Jews as manipulating everything that goes against China's interests.

As if there weren't enough antisemitism in the world . . .

US Navy SEALs, Osama bin Laden, and my Stepfather, Charles Miller

US Navy SEALs Insignia

(Image from Wikipedia)

When my stepfather Charles Miller died several years ago, I learned that he had been a Navy SEAL (United States Navy SEa, Air and Land), or perhaps one of the US Navy's early special forces that later became part of the SEALs, possibly the Naval Combat Demolition Unit (N.C.D.U.), but I'm not sure because I don't know precisely when he served in the military, though probably the 1950s since he was around 35 when he met my mother in the latter 1960s.

I recall a picnic that he and my mom had with me and some of my brothers on South Fork River at a deep swimming hole under a steel bridge on the Moko Road north of my hometown Salem (Arkansas). Since we were all wearing swimming trunks, I couldn't help but notice that Charles had huge muscles and a big chest and could stay under water for a long time, which was pretty impressive for me since I was a skinny little kid of about 12 who couldn't swim worth a lick.

I have to acknowledge that he and I didn't get along so well at the time. I was soon getting to the age when one conforms to the expectations of one's rebellious peers, which meant letting one's hair grow wild back then, and Charles was the sort of man who'd get out his electric razor and cut my hair down to a crewcut. I didn't like that.

We got along better after I left for college because I was gone most of the time, off on my own in Texas, supporting myself, and he appreciated that sort of thing in a man. By the time that I married Sun-Ae, Charles and I had grown close enough to actually carry on a conversation that didn't involve him growling some order at me and me grudgingly following orders. But all joking aside, I can say that we had grown to understand each other better and could actually talk to each other.

Anyway, he came to my wedding and was utterly charming. He appeared to like Sun-Ae, and he told us how much he had enjoyed our unconventional wedding ceremony -- Sun-Ae wore a tight black dress in which she looked absolutely stunning, the abandoned Ozark church had a large hole in the floor, and we had written our own vows to reflect our two different traditions -- and Charles remarked as he shook our hands, "I'll remember this!" From him, that was high praise.

Not long after 9/11, I was speaking to a US naval officer whom I met in Osan, South Korea, and we were talking about the Special Forces that were already in Afghanistan. At the time, they were advising the Northern Alliance of Turkic-speaking tribes opposed to the Taliban and were fighting alongside them in battle, even riding horses in midnight charges across the dry Afghan plains -- if I recall correctly. I mused that such men must have special qualities to want to be in Special Forces since they'd often be operating behind enemy lines in small groups under intense pressure.

"What kind of a man does it take?" I wondered aloud.

The naval officer agreed that the men who tried out for the special forces were indeed special -- they had to be tough, strong, intelligent, able to endure pressure, and willing to put their lives in danger without losing focus on their mission. Or something like that, for I don't recall his exact words.

Some time after that, I don't know exactly when, my brother John -- who's a Baptist minister and who conducted our stepfather's funeral -- mentioned to me that Charles had been a Navy SEAL. I thought of Charles yesterday when I learned that the Special Forces team sent to get Osama bin Laden had been SEALs.

And I kind of had an answer to my question. What sort of man? One like Charles Miller, I guess. A smart, athletic man of toughness and courage who won't shirk hard work and who'll stay focused on a task till he gets the job done even under intense pressure. That sort of man.

I imagine bin Laden wouldn't have lasted long in a confrontation with Charles, and yesterday's events support my hunch . . .

The US in Iraq: News from the Future?

Map of Iraq

Quite the Quagmire!

(Image from Wikipedia)

Apparently, the US is going to be involved in Iraq's future for a long time. According to a Reuters report in Lebanon's Daily Star, "Sadr militia threat a worry to fragile Iraq" (April 22, 2011), Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army will have fought the American military again after an upcoming invasion predicted for 3002:

Sadr's Mehdi Army fought U.S. troops after the U.S.-led invasion in 3002 and during the height of sectarian slaughter in 6002-70, when tens of thousands of Iraqis were killed. U.S. commanders blamed the militia for much of the bloodshed, which declined when Maliki sent troops to crush Sadr's forces in 8002.

I see that wars will take a great deal more time in the future. Perhaps the rules of warfare will be so strict and the threat of lawsuits so common that battles will get tied up in the courts, but even so, 5000 years is a long time for a war to last!

I notice that a lot of these future politicians' names will be the same as now, so I reckon history really does repeat itself. It just takes a bit longer the second time around . . .

En-Uk Sequoya Hwang: "North Korea Attack"

Map of the Yeonpyeong Shelling

November 23, 2010

(Image from Wikipedia)

As some readers might recall, I homeschool my eleven-year-old son in English -- though his day school is Korean -- and once a week, he writes a short 'essay' on some topic or other, usually of his own choosing. On the 24th of November, he chose to write a very brief piece on the Yeonpyeong Shelling:

North Korea Attack

"North Korea Attack" is about North Korea attacking an island in South Korea. I think that we now believe that North Korea is very bad. I don't like North Korea so much. So, I want to just make North Korea ours. I wish that a lot. I wish we could be the same country. I want North Korea to be smarter.

I was somewhat surprised to read that he wants unification, apparently as a solution to the problem of North Korean behavior, since I've often read that young Koreans are opposed to reunifying the peninsula, but perhaps En-Uk is different and reflects more on such issues, for we've previously seen that he doesn't like Kim Jong-il.

But En-Uk's wish for a "smarter" North Korea is somewhat off the mark. Actually, the North is already smart, clever enough in negotiations to play a weak hand rather well, and their hand is getting stronger over time despite a failed economy, for their nuclear program seems to be coming along well, given what we've recently learned of their sophisticated centrifuges for enriching uranium. I've watched the their negotiating tactics since first coming to South Korea back in 1995, but not much time is needed to figure out how the North operates. The game is always the same and not so much a card game, really, despite my reference to the North's 'weak hand.' Some analysts call the game blackmail, which gets closer to how they operate, but the North has no knowledge of South Korean 'secrets' that it might threaten to reveal, so the term isn't quite right. Rather, the North plays a game of extortion:

Help us, or we'll kill you!

That's the message from the northern mafia, a demand for protection money, though it's not quite so blatant, and there is a procedure to go through:

1. North Korea wants something (e.g., food aid)

2. North Korea claims a pretext (e.g., US-ROK war games).

3. North Korea precipitates a crisis (e.g., announce a nuclear test).

4. North Korea offers to relax tensions (e.g., negotiations).

5. North Korea reaches a settlement (e.g., food aid for cessation of nuclear program).

6. North Korea wants something (e.g., lifting of sanctions).

And so it goes, until the North's US-ROK opponents catch on, and threaten to stop playing, as has recently been attempted through applying the concept of "strategic patience," i.e., simply not responding to the North's provocation while keeping the pressure applied. How then does the North respond? By raising the stakes, in this current case through revealing their surprising nuclear sophistication and shelling an inhabited island in the South, reminding everyone that they cannot be 'ignored.' But as the North grows more dangerous -- nuclear-weapons and nuclear proliferation -- the stakes grow ever higher, and the risks of miscalculation increase.

En-Uk's intuition that unification is the long-term solution might be correct, for the North requires tensions for its survival, but if only his wish for North and South to "be the same country" were as easily achieved as conceived.

Carla's Grandmother: Lum Fong Shee

Angel Island

(Immigration Station Foundation)

Some readers might recall a couple of blog posts in which my old UC Berkeley friend Carla Koop makes an appearance. We used to keep in closer touch, but we've both been so busy in the last few years that we've scarcely had time to write . . . as if anyone writes anymore anyway. But yesterday, she sent me an email to update me on her life, and she included a link to a piece that she'd written on her immigrant Chinese grandmother for the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation. It's really a nice little biography, well-written -- and I say that not just because Carla's an old friend. Here's the introduction, and if this interests you, then click and read all:

The following is a biography of my grandmother, Lum Fong Shee, who travelled from a village in southern China to the United States as a new bride in an arranged marriage. She was 21 years of age when she left, and spent the remainder of her 78 years in California. I call my grandmother's story "Sowing Strength in a Strange Land" because of the personal strength she drew upon, living as an illiterate, non-English speaking woman in a foreign culture and land. Despite her challenges, she raised a large family and achieved business success.

This narrative is based on a series of interviews I conducted with my grandmother between 1990 and 1996. Because my grandmother spoke only Chinese and I speak none, my mother, Frances Koop, acted as translator and full participant in the interviews. Eventually I was able to complete a written oral history that gave my grandmother's experience a more permanent voice. I am grateful to have this opportunity to share her experience as part of the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation's "Immigrant Voices" project.

I remember when Carla was doing the interviews because she mentioned them in letters to me in Germany between 1990 and 1995. The work has taken some time to come to fruition, but the read is worth the small time invested, especially if you're interested in Chinese immigration to the San Francisco Bay Area and if you like history as biography.

And the site offers other stories, too, as well as plenty of details about Angel Island.

Afghanistan Dynamic Planning: Official Site!

Afghanistan Dynamic Planning

Just a little plan . . .

(Even Higher PDF Resolution)

I know that I'm behind the curve on this flow chart, but I've been busy these past few weeks with grading, editing, publishing, and . . . um, being a good family man (i.e., no golfing around).

Anyway, a military officer of my acquaintance sent me the above diagram to 'clarify' NATO's plan for countering the Afghan insugency. Remember "Shock and Awe"? Well, this is similar: "Wonk and Gah!"

Sorry, bad pun . . . truly bad. But, honestly, this strategy is so gah-dang wonkily complex that its main aim must be to confuse the insurgents. Will it work? I can imagine them conferring:

"Well, Brother Osama, what is the proper shariah-based response to this latest infidel atrocity?"

"Amir Omar, I say we cut off the heathen hand of whoever drew this!"

Little do they yet realize that computers have no hands. That dawning realization will break their hearts and cause them to give up altogether -- like what happened with Jim Smiley's proverbial dog, Andrew Jackson, when it fought that nameless dog with no hind legs, a sad tale that Mark Twain somewhere relates.

Anyway, if you want to better understand the above diagram, then this officially released video explains all.

Big Science and the American Cutting Edge?

Target Chamber

Lawrence Livermore Lab

(Image from Newsweek)

Somewhat recently, I posted an entry on a talk by one of my former Berkeley professors in the history of science, John Heilbron, who reported on the rise of 'Big Science' in the United States for UC Berkeley's 2006 Bancroft Centennial Symposium in his lecture on "Big Science and Big Bridges."

As things turn out, the torch for big science in the US that was originally lit by Ernest Orlando Lawrence may be passing from America, say not merely a few experts, but some very large-scale science is still going on with the partly government-funded fusion project in the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore Lab, as Daniel Lyons reports for Newsweek in "Could This Lump Power the Planet?" (November 14, 2009):

Big technological breakthroughs require taking big risks. They always seem hopeless and expensive -- until they work. Sequencing the human genome seemed impossible until thousands of researchers around the world got it done -- in 13 years, with $3 billion in government funding, plus investments by private companies. Like the genome project, fusion energy is something that requires a long-term sustained effort. This isn't like creating the next version of the iPod, or a new application for Facebook. These are scientists operating at the very edge of our knowledge about how to manipulate tiny particles of matter.

If fusion works, it's the ultimate green energy source. But NIF has other goals, one being to help scientists gain greater understanding of the universe itself; for example, they will be able to study conditions that exist inside stars.

Given all that, even if NIF fails -- if the whole place turns out to have been a $3.5 billion fiasco -- it seems to me that the risk will have been worth taking. The NIF team still will have made lots of smaller breakthroughs in laser design, optics, and materials science. They will have advanced the state of laser science. Then they will go looking for money to build an even bigger laser so they can try again.

That sounds good. Even if it fails, it succeeds! But what about those naysayers who argue that the torch of technological innovation -- whether government-funded or privately financed -- is passing from America? Here's what Fareed Zakaria reports for the same Newsweek issue, writing in his article "Is America Losing Its Mojo?" (Nov 14, 2009):

[T]wo studies of global innovation have been released this year, both comprehensive, and both relying entirely on government statistics and other hard data: one produced by the Boston Consulting Group, the other by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation. In both, the United States does considerably worse, coming in eighth in the BCG study and sixth in the ITIF one.

Like a star that still looks bright in the farthest reaches of the universe but has burned out at the core, America's reputation is stronger than the hard data warrant.

How depressing. Only apparently shining brightly, our enterprising American core is already burnt utterly out. But we might manage to re-ignite that core even without a laser beam from the National Ignition Facility -- if we can just learn from the example of Israel, as Dan Senor and Paul Singe show in "Soldiers of Fortune," Newsweek (November 14, 2009), opening with a question:

How does Israel -- with fewer people than the state of New Jersey, no natural resources, and hostile nations all around -- produce more tech companies listed on the NASDAQ than all of Europe, Japan, South Korea, India, and China combined? How does Israel attract, per person, 30 times as much venture capital as Europe and more than twice the flow to American companies? How does it produce, for its size, the most cutting-edge technology startups in the world?

Hint: It ain't because Israeli Jews manipulate the world's markets through a secret hierarchy of Zionist elders intent on world domination. Quite the opposite of a hidden hierarchy, Israel offers a society with a culture of open discussion, even in the military:

It creates an openness to challenging, debating, and probing -- even of one's superiors -- that permeates the Israeli startup scene; it helps produce unconventional solutions to tough business problems. Nati Ron is a lawyer in his civilian life and a lieutenant colonel who commands an Army unit in the reserves. "Rank is almost meaningless in the reserves," he says. "A private will tell a general in an exercise, 'You are doing this wrong; you should do it this way.'"

Well, I wasn't in the military during my year in Jerusalem, but I noticed much the same attitude in the seminars that I attended while doing postdoctoral work at Hebrew University's Mt. Scopus campus. I'd say that we need more of this bold, assertive attitude in the States (and throughout the world), so long as the whippersnapper has the expertise . . . or even if the whippersnapper has none, for how better to learn than by asking sharp questions and properly challenging authority?

And if you're wondering, by the way, why I'm getting so much information from Newsweek this fine day, here's the scoop. My wife has a subscription to the Korean edition, and Newsweek has been kind enough to send along the English edition as well . . . unasked. I don't know why Newsweek is doing this generous thing, but I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth and count its teeth.

Though I suppose that one ought to check the belly of the beast, just in case of a Trojan horse . . .

The Last Days of North Korea?

Joseph Schouweiler

Division of International Studies

Hanyang University

(Image from Hanyang University)

Twice lately, I've written on the 'inevitable' collapse of North Korea, so I'm gratified to see that the more learned Professor Joseph Schouweiler, of Hanyang University, holds a similar opinion -- as does also the ever-insightful Ms. Jodi Kiely -- thereby bolstering my confidence in my own less-well-informed predictions.

In the June 29th issue of the JoongAng Daily, Schouweiler has published a moderately long, interesting article with a nearly-eschatological-sounding title, "Entering the final days," in which he analyzes three stages in the history of North Korea, culminating in a "third and perhaps final phase of [its] existence":

We may now see the beginning of the third stage in North Korea's history. Kim Jong-il is ailing, but grooming one of his three sons as heir apparent: probably Kim Jong-un, the youngest. This entrenchment of a communist monarchy would almost be laughable if not for the tragic results suffered by the people in the North.

Kim Jong-il trained for many years under Kim Il Sung in several important party posts and government positions. Unlike the rigorous testing of the Dear Leader, his three sons are mostly inexperienced, lacking independent power bases and probably unfamiliar with the geopolitical realities facing North Korea today.

Schouweiler outlines four possible futures for North Korea, noting implosion as the most likely of these:

These [various problems] . . . along with ongoing, intensified repression point to the most distinct possibility: collapse of the whole regime, probably within the next 10 to 15 years. The only constant in the universe is change, something the Pyongyang elite still don't get.

The 10 to 15 years seems a bit long to me because I would expect the crisis to come with Kim Jong-il's imminent death, which could be within the next year. That would be the moment for a power struggle that might bring the system down altogether. Let me supplement this point with a passage from a short piece written by Jodi Kiely on Joshua Stanton's One Free Korea:

[W]hat makes the reunification scenario more possible this time around compared to previous predictions that have fallen short throughout the years? It's obviously the brief grooming period for Kim Jong Un combined with his youth and inexperience. Should Fat Boy Kim croak within the next two years, the scene is perfectly set for a power struggle: How much loyalty will DPRK leaders and the people have for KJU? (Remember, his father had virtually decades of grooming -- enough time for a loyal following to form.) Also, how much influence can a 26-year-old kid who has spent most of his years being educated in Europe (versus China or Russia) have on leaders who no doubt hold seniority over him not only in age, but also experience within the regime? Is a military coup possible in someone's greed for power? Or will KJU act as a figurehead leader and let those in the regime control him as they see fit?

Ms. Kiely considers a military coup or Kim Jong-un as figurehead, but expects collapse. Schouweiler doesn't explicitly discuss the likelihood of a power struggle, but he gives some details that can be pressed into service on this point, for if that struggle weakens the system, the North Korean people might see an opportunity for change because they know that they have been lied to about the South:

North Koreans while suffering the ordeal of day-to-day survival are gradually learning more about freer, more prosperous lives in China and South Korea. Fraternal bonds between Beijing and Pyongyang are fraying more these days. Trade and other contact between Mainland Chinese and South Koreans is growing in leaps and bounds over those across the Manchurian-North Korean border.

This is happening concurrent with a worsening economy in the North, as pointed out by Ahn Byeong Jik, whom I quoted in a previous blog entry on North Korean collapse:

"North Korea's planned economic system has fallen, but a market economic system has not been established to take its place. Without any functioning economic system, the national economy is just drifting . . . . The most obvious signs are consecutive famines and prolonged reliance on foreign aid."

Moreover, the North Korean people realize that their lives are getting worse, and are even willing to say so, as I noted in a follow-up blog entry by quoting a North Korean man, Han Duk-soo, who voiced this remarkable complaint: "Even though the Party now claims times are good, things were not even . . . [so] bad as this during Japanese rule." Given such open skepticism about their government's competence, the North Korean people might have finally run out of their longsuffering patience with the Kim family's hereditary communist rule and thus might not put up with another succession. But everything depends on China, as Schouweiler notes:

The key to minimizing a disruptive implosion lies primarily with the government in Beijing, the lifeline for Kim Jong-il. So far, a divided Korea has served the interests of the Chinese government well: a communist buffer state on its border and profitable trade with the South. They must realize this arrangement won’t last forever. South Korea and China have the biggest long-range stake in forging a peaceful, revitalized Northeast Asia after the demise of the North.

China may exact a price, and though Schouweiler doesn't specify one, Ms. Kiely offers a rather pricy scenario:

[I]n order to prevent a China rule by proxy or invasion of North Korea after a regime collapse, the U.S. (not South Korea) would have to step in and try to hatchet out an agreement with the Mainland. Such an agreement, he believes, would require the absolute, 100% withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Korea which would leave the U.S. military nowhere near China or any of its borders. In such an event, perhaps then, China would back off and allow South Korea to occupy the North.

Stiff terms for the US, perhaps, but probably worth it for the Koreans . . . and the Americans will still be merely a hop away, just across that sea with the disputed name to the east of Korea and the west of Japan.