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RE #5

Realpolitik only if it can change the situation rather than keeping the beast on hold. Kim Dae-Jung ended up helping N. Korea allocate more resources to upgrade their missiles and nukes. More chips for N. Korea to bargain away in the future at higher prices.

I did not know that paying endless tribute is your way of solving a problem. N. Korea won't change unless she has to. That is a quite realistic assumption no matter what they say.

The way I see it is that Kim Jong Il knows that N. Korea can't continues as in the past, but change at any cost is not an option. His only barganing chip is nuclear weapons/massive conventional army. Look what happened to the Ukraine once it gave up its ICBM's! when was the last time the Ukraine made the news (apart from some coal mine disaster story)? I thin that Kim Jong Il is looking for an organized re-unification as opposed to a complete collapse of North Korea, that is why he is trying to emulate the chinese model, both economically and politically. Whilst hard economic choices are being made at home, the nuclear rhetoric is designed to divert attention from those problems (like the Chinese over Taiwan).

Who does Kim Jong Il think is the greatest long term threat? I don't think it is the US - the US is a tool to an end, i.e. the transition of North Korea. I think he is worried about China, which eventhough has seriously toned down its own rhetoric (since joining the WTO), will for the foreseeable future pose the most significant threat to the Korean peninsular, whether it be military or economic. Japan doesn't count - they are hated because of history, but they are a minor strategic entity. My prediction (!) is that Kim Jong Il wants a united nuclear Korea as protection from a growing China (I won't mention flashpoints such as the Spratley's). He neither seems irratic, nor mad to me. I always feel that when journalists start using such words, it is because they have failed to come up with an analytical theory/ don't have a clue. Kim Jong Il's methods may be scary, but he knows what he wants...

VRN