North Korea - What Now?

What will happen in North Korea?

The regime seems far less stable than the Arab dictatorships or even the USSR by the end of the 80s.
For there is no doubt that North Korean regime will collapse most probably sooner than later and in any case not later than the end of this decade if not in the first half of it.
The problem is how the world or the major interests involved will deal with it. If there are any particular plans they don't seem to be public if they exist at all so I will feel free to speculate.
Questions to be answered:

First, what could happen?
Second, who are the major players and what are their interests?
Third, what can they do to promote them or what can be expected that they may do?

Possible answers to the first question – possible developments :

1. Russian scenario. A Gorbachev style move towards reforms starts well but ends in Yeltsin type chaos of crime and corruption until the Putin type strongman regulates corruption in favor of his clique and puts the losers in jail
2. Chinese scenario. Deng Xiaoping style reforms lead to improved living standards while preserving the rule of the communist party and postponing the inevitable collapse.
3. East German scenario. South Korea absorbs North Korea and the North Korean communist elite melts into obscurity.

Additional questions stemming from the proposed answers to the first question:

• Which is the preferred scenario?
• Which is the most probable one?
• Which is the most dangerous?

Answer to the second question – major stakeholders :

1. The people of North Korea – interested in survival, development, democracy and opportunities
2. The communist elite of North Korea – interested in preserving their privileges
3. South Korea – interest in dealing with the military threat from the North and reunification.
4. China – interested in stability in Korea to prevent destabilization of its regions bordering Korea.
5. Japan – interested in removing the threat from North Korea and a host of problems.
6. USA – a peaceful Korea will reduce the need for US military presence but open opportunities for trade.
7. Russia – has shown remarkable indifference for a country so close and the importance accorded by the government to the development of the Russian Pacific region so close to North Korea.

So far all stakeholders (with the notable exception of the sovereign – the people of North Korea) have pledged to work with the elite in North Korea to facilitate a smooth transition. Russia has warned against “provocations” by North Korean neighbors probably meaning that the Russian government won't tolerate a repeat of the Libyan scenario.
That may be the most sensible foreign policy in response to the contingency of the moment but what should the main stakeholders do to secure the promotion of there strategic interests in the future?
And what those interest may be? (I am aware that the concise list provided here is far from complete and may be even off the mark.)

You Cannot Love If You Don't Know

If you want to give
you have to have.
If you want to live
you have to love.

You can only have
what you understand,
not what is in your hand,
and you cannot know it if you don't love.

Russian Spring and US National Interest

One night the Khalif Harum al Rashid summoned his vizier Jafar and said to him: “I wish to go into the city to find out what is happening and to question the people about the conduct of my administrators so that I may dismiss those who they complain of and promote those they praise...”
from the Tale of Three Apples not Newton's, Beatles' and Steve Jobs' but the one from The Thousand and One Nights

The Khalif in Moscow seems to have forgotten that he has to check what people think of his administrators and confident in his popularity after ruling uncontested for over 12 years was unpleasantly surprised by his party's loss of more than 20 per cent of their seats in the Russian parliament regardless of the intimidation of his opponents and his control over the media (perhaps that was caused in part by the 20 per cent increase of internet penetration among the highly literate Russian population). Even worse he seems failing to acknowledge that the people have genuine concerns and dismisses the protesters in true Leninist style as paid by the West. To top it up US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton expressed her concern with the rigged elections, prompting Mr Putin to retaliate that she was instigating the protests which is hardly try. Try spending several hours outside in the Russian winter. No matter how big a fan of Mrs Clinton you may be that thought won't be enough to keep you warm. Just how shaky Putin's position is at the moment can be discerned by his nervousness and lack of confidence (this is the man who rides his horse half-naked even when Sarah Palin is not watching from Alaska) but making the allusion that the white ribbons used by the protesters look like condoms is pretty low (and exposes ignorance that condoms may come in different colors). Gorbachev too (hardly a political competitor anymore) incurred the wrath of Putin by calling for a rerun of the elections.
Having said all that most of the protesters have spent most of their creative lives under the relatively secure, stable and prosperous rule of Putin and his political allies especially if compared with the chaotic Yeltsin regime. Those are the less flamboyant KGB guys (the more extravagant ones are in London dazzling the UK public with extreme wealth obtain though unthinkable corruption) and they may continue to rule Russia for quite some time with or without Putin mostly because they are unlikely to give up their positions without a fight. On the other hand the protestors are not the workers, soldiers and sailors of the October Revolution from the previous century. They are mostly middle class people who are looking for a government that can provide for more opportunities for development and innovation besides selling oil and gas to the West and China.
And that is where the interests of the people standing in the cold in Russia coincide with US national interest. A more democratic Russia where innovation and development will create more markets for US products and more products for US markets can only benefit the US middle class.
In that line of thought it was lucky timing that Russia was accepted as a member of the WTO just when it needs a boost. US – Russia relations cannot be fully covered by the philosophy of a “reset”. They need much more creative thinking to build a whole new system of interdependence and cooperation that will not only boost domestic economies but help create the conditions for stability and prosperity across Eurasia where pockets of volatile conflicts and regional animosities threaten to blow out of proportions, not to mention the imminent collapse of Chinese communism with yet unknown and unpredictable consequences.
The most precious legacy of the G.W. Bush era is the expensive lesson that the US cannot and should not act alone attempting to resolve international issues no matter how well-intentioned and powerful it may feel. It is debilitatingly expensive and the results are at best inconclusive if not disastrous.
The cheapest and most effective way to promote US national interest globally (and in space) is through cooperation – Marshal Plan style, or Kissinger's policy towards China style or International Space Station style. That is not confined to US international experience. Post WWII French policy to entangle Germany in an EU, (I remember it was originally an US idea) but it only became successful after France started pursuing it with religious fervor, and has managed to forge fascinating unity on the Old Continent torn by the most devastating wars in human history less than a century ago, and that united continent is one of the most reliable US trade partners and military allies.
Russia has moved a long way since the stagnation of the Brezhnev era. It is not perfect but it is moving slowly forward. It's in our interest to support that movement.

… the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it— but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor...
--- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Desires and Values

In our quest for happiness conjuring plans and putting them into action to fulfill our goals to satisfy our desires we acquire knowledge that can be shared with others for the mutual benefit of reaching our goals easier and cheaper. Thus knowledge is any information that can be used for the creation of a workable way to pursue our interests. Distilling our interest from the fountain of desires bursting from the spring of life fueled by love and beauty builds the structure of the tower of wisdom. That tower will be shinier and taller if it is built on sincerity and honesty or else deception can easily lead to misunderstanding that will cause it to crumble. Because of its complexity the search of happiness is only partially achievable by reason alone. It needs the passion of divine faith to serve as guiding light in the darkness of uncertainty. Desires may be born in the quest for earthly pleasures but that is only a refection of their heavenly source and destination. To deny the moving force of desires is to deny life itself. If they are there they must serve a purpose. It might be divine if you believe in God or you can consider it natural if you believe in Nature but they have the power of an ocean wave that can drown you or give lift you high and take you far in an exhilarating ride if you have mastered the skill to use it.

Sincerity and faith will make communication with like-minded souls possible. You may be able to achieve faster and more impressive results through lies but those results are likely to be short-lived and will most certainly cause more harm than good in the long run. Also depriving others of your honest oppinion on your interests and the best ways to achieve them deprives the community of valuable input which may be decisive for success or failure based on the advantage gained by deliberation.

Desires lead to values through the process of defining first interests, then goals by tempering them in the furnaces of reason, faith and passion. True wisdom will not come only through reason or, faith or passion alone or by merely absorbing knowledge useful to others. It can only blossom from a constant personal quest to understand what I really want, who I really am, why do I love myself and how will that help me become a better (happier) person with the help of others and how can I help them do that.

What You See Is What You Get

What you see is what you get in live. If you know more you will get it easier. Understanding how the world works is critical to achieve ones goals easier. That knowledge comes from reflection on personal and others' experience. By reflection I mean both creating assumptions on cause and effect relationships and analyzing the result of testing these assumptions in real life. Personal experience is the most expensive but most reliable method of testing these assumptions and it relates them to our personal goals, interests or desires more closely than others. An experiment or in other words an artificial model of reality to test our theories is cheaper than real life experience but can be inaccurate or misleading due to the necessary simplification of that reality. The danger of self deception is even greater when applied to complex phenomena like society, business and especially politics.

But if personal experience leads to better knowledge wouldn't that also mean that personal theories of happiness, ethics, economics and politics are better than general ones. And indeed that is the logical conclusion. General theories are always weaker and less informative than personal ones. That doesn't meant that the are unnecessary – we need them to establish understanding between us so we can get other to help us achieve our goals which would be difficult (if not impossible unless one resorts to coercion) if we don't have a shared system of values, meanings and beliefs on the projected results of certain actions. Coercion is bad not because of some obscure commandment but because it can only achieve short lived results deceptively easy. The results will be short lived and the whole coercive enterprise a waste of resources because anything that does not develop is bound to die out. The only way to improve the results from coercion is by more coercion thus inevitably causing more resistance until the balance tips over against the perpetrator of coercive practices. It's a futile exercise and that makes it bad policy to pursue.

Scapegoat

Who is to blame for the mess we are in?

The politicians?

Big business?

Both?

Or its all our own fault?

Mad is not the man who eats two cabbage pies,

but mad is the one who gives them to the man.

Bulgarian wisdom (don't count on it's relevance, but ignore it on your own risk)

The Tea (for lack of beer) Party will blame big government and unaccountability and they are to a great extent right. The OWS will blame big business and they too have a point. But it is like blaming the GPS if you don't know where you want to go. If your goal is clear then the deficiencies of the instruments to get you there would be more obvious. The main problem with government is not lack of efficiency but lack of effectiveness. It's no use to blame someone for wastefulness if you don't know the final goal. You cannot allocate resources if you don't have priorities, you cannot find the way if you don't know the destination. Once you know that you are looking for the Wizard of Oz the Yellow Brick Road becomes visible clearer than before.

Less regulation may seem like more freedom to its advocates by they should remember that free markets are impossible without a government guaranteeing private property and the critics of capitalism while right about the negative consequences from breathtaking inequality should keep in mind that when private property is compromised even worse inequality (Chinese, Cuban or North Korean style) emerges inevitably. The above are simple laws of how society works. By simple I do not imply insignificant but basic and solid to the extent that further attempt to disprove them will be rightfully considered waste of time. I will restate them:

1. There is no democracy without free markets.

2. There is no free market economy without democracy.

3. There is no freedom without both of the above being in place.

But if the goal setting is the most important part of the politico/economic process how do we go about setting them?

Here the answer cannot be simple because the goals must incorporate the interests of each and every citizen. Market and Politics work differently. When buying or selling it is the customer peculiar preferences that come to the surface. In a democracy on the other hand it is the same peculiar, individual, pesonal interests that are most important but they are negotiated in a manner appealing to some common, overarching interest. That has let some to believe that this commont interest is above personal interest and that is the worst political error with the gravest consequences as has been proven by the actions of Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot among others. Private, individual interest always has the priority and only by protecting and respecting it is possible to formulate and protect a common course of action that wouldn't turn against those who it is supposed to benefit.

Therefore it is not politicians and big business who are to blame. It's me and you – equally. Perhaps to a certain extent it's more my fault than yours. Think about it. Tell me what you think.