The Survival of North Korea

“this book offers a realistic approach to dealing with a difficult, opaque country that is not going away any time soon”—Korean Quarterly; “This volume, which includes insights from some of the foremost practitioners of direct engagement with North Korea, examines comprehensively the contradiction between the conventional wisdom that the North Korean system is unsustainable and the reality of North Korea’s ability to adjust and survive. This volume examines the factors that have sustained North Korea and the extraordinary policy challenges that a nuclear North Korea’s survival—or its demise—may generate for peninsular and regional stability in Northeast Asia.”—Scott Snyder, director, Center for U.S.-Korea Policy, The Asia Foundation; “For understandable reasons, there has been a tendency, particularly in the United States, to focus almost entirely on the nuclear issue when thinking about North Korea. A similar comment could be made about the recurrent preoccupation with collapse. This welcome collection of papers achieves a broader perspective by stepping back and asking some very fundamental questions about the sources of North Korea’s demonstrated durability and how the country might evolve in a variety of dimensions over the medium- to long-run...a laudable contribution on an important issue.”—Marcus Noland, deputy director, Peterson Institute for International Economics; “This book should be read by any scholar, journalist or diplomat interested in developments on the Korean peninsula. It offers extremely valuable insights and helpful recommendations for peaceful change.”—Hans-Ulrich Seidt, German ambassador to the Republic of Korea; “This is the first book to explain systematically why North Korea has endured against all odds. It also shows why, in spite of the efforts of the greatest powers on Earth to force it to abandon its nuclear weapons program, it has refused to capitulate and has instead pursued its own path to become nuclear-armed. Given the complicated nature of the international conflict focused on and in Korea, no book can provide a decisive answer to why North Korea survived. But with its many carefully interwoven threads of argument and evidence, this book provides the reader with insight into the full complexity of the Korean conflict. Now one of the longest wars in history, the book reflects the urgency of ending the standoff on the Peninsula and of avoiding a war that could easily escalate into a catastrophic, nuclear war.”—Peter Hayes, executive director, Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability.