Word: jonge
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Even since before the mystifying Kim Jong Il took power in 1995, the outside world has tried mightily to figure out how the North Korean regime works. Spy satellites are trained on suspected nuclear sites 24 hours a day. The U.S.'s "Big Ear" - the National Security Agency - eavesdrops on communications. Defectors from the North have been thoroughly scrubbed and spies have been recruited. During the presidency of George W. Bush, diplomats from the U.S. and four other countries talked, on and off, for years with their counterparts from Pyongyang...
...interpret the latest North Korean actions as provocations, pure and simple, badly misreads the message and the precarious position of its sender. An insecure regime with an economy that may easily descend again into widespread famine, and a leader, Kim Jong Il, who appears very ill, to judge from recent photos, is not bargaining from strength. Self-preservation is the name of its game. The leading decision-making body that Kim heads, the National Defense Commission, is filled with generals who most assuredly want to demonstrate that the regime still has muscle. These are people who know that war means...
...only bargaining chips. And the bargaining can only be with Washington, which Pyongyang has recognized for some time as its best hope for surviving. From the North's point of view, any bargain would have to take the form of a new package deal that would reaffirm to Kim Jong Il that the U.S. is not hostile to the regime, accepts its legitimacy and is willing to provide long-term development assistance. Only the U.S. can persuade the leadership in South Korea not to seek to absorb the North or undermine it - so long as North Korea terminates its plutonium...
...then there's North Korea. The scenario facing the Pacific Command (PACOM) posits that Kim Jong Il dies in 2016 and is replaced by a new leader who resumes the processing of uranium for the countries' long-disputed nuclear weapons program. Once two North Korean uranium enrichment plants are discovered, the United Nations passes a security council resolution to oppose the action. In response, North Korean forces cross the DMZ and launch an invasion of the south by disguising thousands of troops within groups of refugees, creating what is called "an irrgular warfare-type scenario that may require a mixture...
...Department, which already has its hands full trying to secure the release of 31-year-old Iranian American journalist Roxana Saberi, has been especially tight-lipped about the North Korean case, saying only "numerous channels are being used to hasten their release." (See pictures of the rise of Kim Jong...