It is reasonable to assume that South Korea has helped prolong the regime, but not accurate to assign full blame to Kim and Roh — not least because US aid under the Agreed Framework added up to about $1 billion, a third of which was disbursed by the Bush administration. Seoul governments before the Sunshine boys also feared the cost of unification once the bill for the Germanies became clear.

The reality here is that the two countries who would be most able to exert the kind of influence that might topple Kim Jong-il are the ones least likely to take that move because they have interests that they see as more important than keeping nukes out of his hands.

$500 million for a Nobel Peace Prize goes a long way.

Expert idiots.

While the think-tankers may be expert idiots, usual suspect commentators of the Hole make for just simply idiots.

Even if Sunshine had never happened, NK would have remained far from collapse all along just on the Chinese Yalu border trade and the Yakuza black-market money transfers alone. Then what?

Fundamental assumptions of the NK collapse theory is strongly modelled on what happened in Eastern Europe in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Loss of a major, superpower protector state and the rise of popular revolt which led to the toppling of the old order.

Of course, this is an analysis based upon an incongruous analogy. China happens to be NK’s benefactor state, and they never fell; on the contrary, China is rising and economically prosperous like they’re never been in the post-European imperialism era, and wields international, diplomatic clout. Furthermore, the NK version of totalitarianism makes all other former Soviet satellites seem pathetic in comparision. The think-tankers also grossly underestimated NK will and determination. As a nation, NK has evolved, in natural-selection sense, to be a hardy survivor in an environment filled with hostile forces.