I've been extremely busy the last month or so, and it isn't going to change until around Christmas. I haven't been able to keep up with this site or the blogs or the Korean news much.

I did want to post about the nuke test, however, and what I think we should look for next.

I knew a nuke test would be in the works after the ICBM came and went, and I knew an ICBM would be launched after the US placed sanctions that seemed to clearly hurt the North and China did not come to the rescue.

Now, based on the timing of the nuke test (so soon after the ICBM), and the other factors we have already seen the last 12 months, I believe NK will collapse before 2009.

I have never been a fan of predicting NK's demise, but I believe it is highly desperate now, and that means to me Pyongyang believes its days are numbered unless it can force some major shift in its situation - which it can't.

But ------ I also predict ----- the next step for Pyongyang will be ------

----(re)turning to terroristic acts.

Since its high budget, big ticket items (ICBMs & Nukes) will not gain the concessions it believes it must have, it will result to low tech, more frequent methods it has used in the past.

I expect some South Koreans to get killed in 2007. I would bet money if you gave me slightly favorable odds that some Japanese ships are fired on. I would say US troops or ships being targets of limited attacks is not out of the question.

I would say pretty much anything is possible, because anything has been possible in the past: passenger planes blown up, commando teams storming the Blue House, lone assassination attempts, blowing up the S. Korean government in a third country, you name it....

I believe 2007 will see those days return.

If the DPRK can last until 2009, the year you say it will collapse, then it will be dealing with a new American administration. That may be the time when things will change. Will they change for the worse or for the better? No way to predict. The little man in the north is rumored to have health problems. If true, lets hope his bad health doesn't reach a point close to death before then so he feels compelled to commit the desperate act of a dying man, in the name of his father, which will be to nuke Seoul.

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Turk Quid Pro Quo

I meant that NK will not live to see 2009 - that it will collapse any time before then.

I'm putting together all the signs and influences we've seen over the last 12 months, including the reports of his health problems and how the regime was reported to be trying to fix who in the family is next in line for the throne, and I think everything points to NK believing it is about to go down and is trying desperate measures.

One big factor is that I think China has shown it is not willing to step up to the plate for North Korea much bigger than it already has - in fact - its support has gone down over the last 12 months - at the same time the US has been applying an increase in effective pressure.

That is a huge key.

If China doesn't yin to America's yang ---- if it does not increase support of the North in direct proportion to an increase in US pressure on North Korea's money and material inflows ---- North Korea cannot last (I would bet).

And the nuke test coming so soon after the ICBM launch --- which I believe is highly uncharacteristic of the North --- screams to me that the pain NK feels right now is deep and the regime is predicting it is only going to get worse.

It is true they looked like they were going down in the 1990s famine, but for some reason I haven't exactly put a finger on yet ---- back then - I brushed off claims NK would collapse as fool's folly --- but now ---- I really get the feeling things are coming to an end --- and I hope for an end without a mammoth BANG but it is a coin toss there.....

You know, the fact that the DPRK chose this moment to do its nuke test shows that they have had it ready to go for some time, just waiting for the moment when the dear little leader decided it was time. His choice to do it now could be as simple as wanting to make sure he was the first of the current anti-American leaders to get it done. He wouldn't want to be second place behind the Iranians and Hugo Chavezes to be the first new millenium nuclear thorn in America's side. Maybe he was scared one of the other leaders with a napolean complex would beat him to it. This way he has made a notorious place in history for his self. I doubt the DPRK will collapse by 2009. Unless we aerially destroy the country.

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Turk Quid Pro Quo

He had the ICBMs to use at any time as well, that is why looking at the timing is more valuable than perhaps is normal.

It seems like a safe bet the ICBM test was a direct result of the increased pressure the US put on the money flows over the past 6 to 12 months - coupled with the fact China did not counter-balance this new pressure with increased goodies for Pyongyang. In fact, the opposite happened, China played along with the US on some of the sanctions.

Seeing that, I knew an ICBM test would be around the corner.

And I'm staking my name to the idea the nuke test coming so soon after the ICBM test means --- desperation.

The way I look at is ---- NK did learn a lot about just how much pain it could "endure" in the 1990s. It was shocked to collapse as much as it did, and it saw things it thought it would never let happen - like (starving) people move freely about the land (searching for rats to eat). It also had to do something it absolutely hated, let in outsiders to get the food. It eventually drove off the humanitarian groups...

But a couple million of its citizens, a fair chunk of its population died, but it survived. That most likely gave KJI some confidence.

But --- NK has not recovered. It has been tredding water. It is nowhere close to having the strength it did before the 1990s famine. It has been living, primarily, off the desire of China and SK to avoid seeing NK collapse.

As long as those two meet the short falls in Pyongyang's minimum needs, it can coast along whether some citizens starve to death or not. But, if those minimum needs are not being met, it could cave in fast, because it was already broken down to the last few steps of the ladder in the 1990s.

Seeing NK use up two of its best cards back to back - and some of what it has said since the nuke test --- leads me to believe those minimum material/fiancial needs are not being met.

And that means collapse.

After today's UN session where the sanctions against the DPRK were unanimous and the DPRK UN guy said in response that any further pressure against them would be considered an act of war, it could be argued that they are trying to "commit suicide by cop." We are the cop and they will not back down until one of us pulls the trigger on resuming the war.

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Turk Quid Pro Quo

That is one reason I'm willing for the first time to say NK is going to go down within 2 years. They talk about "saving face" but NK really doesn't save face - none that sticks out in my mind. In the 1990s, they accepted food aid and NGOs (for awhile) because they were in fear of collapse, but they weren't being pressured from the outside, and they eventually kicked out the NGOs and didn't open up much besides that.

I don't see NK backing down - even if they fear collapse.

I can imagine people not directly tied to the hip of Kim Jong Il breaking ranks and rebelling - refusing to take marching orders that include invading SK or lobbing artillery shells against the South or something like that. I can picture some officers and units refusing to fight if they see their god's son, KJI, going down. Even in NK, there must be people up and down the chain who have lost faith in the regime. I think once cracks begin to show inside to the NK people, the dam could very well burst ----- before the regime can strike out in a coordinated way.

I also think the type of terrorist or provocative actions I believe NK will take in 2007 and 2008 could sour more and more of the mid-level and higher level North Koreans - those who do posses some information about the outside world, understand how far they are from collapse, and who can calculate what the best way to set themselves up for a post-regime (unified) Korea is.

If NK does turn to the type of brinkmanshp I suspect, it could help us pressure the fence sitting North Koreans if they fear the US is going to come in - and that could help speed up collapse.

Whatever the case, if the US government has any sense, it will make a very big push in 2007 to flood NK with information, and I mean FAR beyond the radio we pipe in. We need to get all kinds of information flowing in over the NK-China border and provide any groups (even if just 4 or 5 individuals) with the tools to gather transmissions of different types from outside the nation and spread what they receive around.

There are MANY ways to try to help spread the truth about the outside world in North Korean society as a person with a good imagination and some knowledge of modern and cutting edge technology. The US should start spending a lot of money to put as many of these ideas to work as possible. Open up as many avenues of information flows as we can.

I'd make NK look like the dumping ground for Office Depot.

I'd buy up as many prototypes of durable, effective, small communication transmition devices I could find and smuggle them in.

For example, some of the guys who were with Apple and Microsoft, I believe it was, got together to make durable, small notebook computers that are powered by a hand-held crank. They are designed for poor nations around the world to get computers to all societies and wide spread. I'd have those in NK tomorrow.

The printing press was a revolutionary product that helped revolutions and movements all over the world.

Today, with hand-held mini computer devices, you can do so much more so much more easily than the printing press.

We should be able to bust NK wide open.

whatever it is, hope NK collapses soon. If what you are saying is true, I may see and visit NK before my days are over which seemed impossible in the past. Hope you are dead right...

Oddly enough, in my train of thought since the nuke test, the fact NK has agreed to come back to the talks so soon - actually makes me worry a little more than if they had waited and used a minor terror attack (like another West Sea patrol boat gun battle) as their next message to the world.

China is supposed to have cut off the North's oil for a month - that could explain the quick turn around....

....without that oil, Pyongyang would be hurting instantly, and perhaps that explains why they agreed to sit down at 6 party talks so quickly.

But - another interpretation that works is that ---- like I have feared since the nuke test --- Pyongyang was already hurting so much that it fears it is going to come close to collapsing sometime in the near future....

....and the fact they caved in to at least agreeing to come back to the talks so quickly after the nuke test --- could mean they fear "the near future" is just a few months away...

What I mean is ---- by agreeing to come to the talks so soon after the nuke test and the US and global reaction to it, it makes Pyongyang look weak - and Pyongyang is usually pretty good about not looking weak.

Back in 1994, they held out until most people were convinced the US was just about to bomb the nuke sites.

I think the North would normally have felt it was smarter to hold out a couple of months at least before agreeing to 6 party talks. Maybe try to work it out so the US sends some high level person to Pyongyang - and then announce that that visit is a "sign" the US is "caving into" them and thus portray resuming talks as a victory.

Coming to the talks so soon after the US and China and others have imposed sanctions in the UN security council makes it look like ----- twisting North Korea's arm worked....

....and NK is usually very good at not looking like it has been "forced" to do something. It tried hard to do this even when it let in outside humanitarian organizations to feed its starving masses....

............and I guess that illustrates my point very well----

Pyongyang allowed the humanitarian crisis to go on for years --- allowing hundreds of thousands MORE of its people starve to death --- rather than seem "weak" by looking like it had to "beg" for food.

It kept humanitarian organizations out and severely limited their effectiveness when it did let them in --- because it did not want the world to see how pitiful its people were and how they were unable to feed them.

But, now, Pyongyang is giving in this soon after the nuke test resulted in further sanctions?????

They might really be hurting right now.........they might really be fearing collapse...

Time will tell....