Surely not; if the only thing keeping North Korea’s activities, particularly their weapons programs, secret, was a language barrier, they wouldn’t be such an international enigma. Translation is not hard to come by.
You are conflating two different things: classified information about NK’s weapon programs (which is indeed hard to come by) and general information about NK: what’s happening there economically, politically, etc.
I am quite sure there are people in South Korea and China who understand the internal workings of North Korea very well and write about it. They don’t publish in English—why should they? -- and while their writings are likely translated in-house for the US intelligence agencies, the mainstream media isn’t interested in them because very few Americans are interested in the details of the North Korea’s internal situation.
Here is an example, and in English, too—an apparently Russian guy writes in the South Korean newspaper about entrepreneurship in North Korea. Publicly available? Yes. Out of sight of most of English-speaking world? Yes.
Here is an example, and in English, too—an apparently Russian guy writes in the South Korean newspaper about entrepreneurship in North Korea. Publicly available? Yes. Out of sight of most of English-speaking world? Yes.
Not a great example. You linked to Andrei Lankov—but Lankov is one of the better known NK commentators and anyone who actually tries to read more detail about NK beyond what they might find in the New York Times will soon run into Lankov. I don’t even care that much about NK, but I still have at least 3 clippings mentioning or quoting Lankov in my Evernotes. He’s routinely quoted in newspapers (checking Google News, I see the Guardian, CBS, the Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe etc, all within the past month or so; and actually, you can also find him in the NYT if you search, being quoted and writing editorials). So… ‘out of sight’? Not really.
I wasn’t trying to point to some “underground” sources—I was arguing against the idea that NK is “an international enigma” and that “there’s so little public information; everything you see on the public Internet is essentially guesswork and satellite imagery”.
I don’t believe this to be true—people, e.g. like Lankov, actually travel to NK, talk to the locals, debrief defectors, etc. Such people have a reasonable idea about the situation in NK and I bet more of them write in Korean or Chinese than in English like Lankov does.
You said Lankov was “Out of sight of most of English-speaking world? Yes.” That’s not true at all and is trivially shown to be false with a little googling.
I don’t believe this to be true—people, e.g. like Lankov, actually travel to NK, talk to the locals, debrief defectors, etc. Such people have a reasonable idea about the situation in NK and I bet more of them write in Korean or Chinese than in English like Lankov does.
Here I would disagree. NK is a notorious blackhole of unpredictability. Who predicted its terrorism like the Cheonan or the shelling of that island? Who is able to predict when NK decides or doesn’t decide to do a nuke test?
Actually, current events give us a great example: Jang’s arrest the other day. Before, people used to speculate that Jang was the true power and Eun was nothing but his puppet. Being arrested, possibly being executed, his allies being purged… that’s pretty much the exact opposite of what that theory predicts. If we can’t even get right who the ruler of NK is, how is NK at all understood?
If we can’t even get right who the ruler of NK is, how is NK at all understood?
I disagree with this example. He isn’t worth purging unless he has a lot of power. It is reasonably common for figureheads to purge their shadows and seize power. I don’t know whether that’s what happened; or whether he was a future threat rather than a past ruler; or whether he never had any power and was just doomed by foreign speculation. But I don’t conclude that the speculation was far from the mark.
North Korea is hardly the country with speculation about the ruler. Jiang Zemin’s purge last year ago caused me to update upwards the amount of power he maintained for the past decade. Many said that Cheney was the puppetmaster.
He isn’t worth purging unless he has a lot of power.
Purges affect all sorts of people. Stalin’s purges were notorious for their indiscriminateness. The prison camps of NK are filled with powerless people. The lack of targeting is precisely one reason purges are so terrifying and so useful—no one feels safe, no matter how powerful or powerless.
There are a LOT of black holes of unpredictability around. Forecasting political developments is a popular (and well-financed) activity with not that great record of success.
There are a LOT of black holes of unpredictability around. Forecasting political developments is a popular (and well-financed) activity with not that great record of success.
As an active participant (IEM/Intrade/GJP) in political forecasting, my own opinion is that most topics are far easier than North Korea, and when I am betting my money (or play money) on NK topics, I generally shrug and resort to simple base-rate reasoning.
I can ask my sister (who is fluent in Mandarin) to try a search for information on the internal situation in North Korea in Chinese, but I honestly doubt that there’s much more information publicly available than there is in English.
Surely not; if the only thing keeping North Korea’s activities, particularly their weapons programs, secret, was a language barrier, they wouldn’t be such an international enigma. Translation is not hard to come by.
You are conflating two different things: classified information about NK’s weapon programs (which is indeed hard to come by) and general information about NK: what’s happening there economically, politically, etc.
I am quite sure there are people in South Korea and China who understand the internal workings of North Korea very well and write about it. They don’t publish in English—why should they? -- and while their writings are likely translated in-house for the US intelligence agencies, the mainstream media isn’t interested in them because very few Americans are interested in the details of the North Korea’s internal situation.
Here is an example, and in English, too—an apparently Russian guy writes in the South Korean newspaper about entrepreneurship in North Korea. Publicly available? Yes. Out of sight of most of English-speaking world? Yes.
Not a great example. You linked to Andrei Lankov—but Lankov is one of the better known NK commentators and anyone who actually tries to read more detail about NK beyond what they might find in the New York Times will soon run into Lankov. I don’t even care that much about NK, but I still have at least 3 clippings mentioning or quoting Lankov in my Evernotes. He’s routinely quoted in newspapers (checking Google News, I see the Guardian, CBS, the Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe etc, all within the past month or so; and actually, you can also find him in the NYT if you search, being quoted and writing editorials). So… ‘out of sight’? Not really.
I wasn’t trying to point to some “underground” sources—I was arguing against the idea that NK is “an international enigma” and that “there’s so little public information; everything you see on the public Internet is essentially guesswork and satellite imagery”.
I don’t believe this to be true—people, e.g. like Lankov, actually travel to NK, talk to the locals, debrief defectors, etc. Such people have a reasonable idea about the situation in NK and I bet more of them write in Korean or Chinese than in English like Lankov does.
You said Lankov was “Out of sight of most of English-speaking world? Yes.” That’s not true at all and is trivially shown to be false with a little googling.
Here I would disagree. NK is a notorious blackhole of unpredictability. Who predicted its terrorism like the Cheonan or the shelling of that island? Who is able to predict when NK decides or doesn’t decide to do a nuke test?
Actually, current events give us a great example: Jang’s arrest the other day. Before, people used to speculate that Jang was the true power and Eun was nothing but his puppet. Being arrested, possibly being executed, his allies being purged… that’s pretty much the exact opposite of what that theory predicts. If we can’t even get right who the ruler of NK is, how is NK at all understood?
I disagree with this example. He isn’t worth purging unless he has a lot of power. It is reasonably common for figureheads to purge their shadows and seize power. I don’t know whether that’s what happened; or whether he was a future threat rather than a past ruler; or whether he never had any power and was just doomed by foreign speculation. But I don’t conclude that the speculation was far from the mark.
North Korea is hardly the country with speculation about the ruler. Jiang Zemin’s purge last year ago caused me to update upwards the amount of power he maintained for the past decade. Many said that Cheney was the puppetmaster.
Purges affect all sorts of people. Stalin’s purges were notorious for their indiscriminateness. The prison camps of NK are filled with powerless people. The lack of targeting is precisely one reason purges are so terrifying and so useful—no one feels safe, no matter how powerful or powerless.
Concede.
There are a LOT of black holes of unpredictability around. Forecasting political developments is a popular (and well-financed) activity with not that great record of success.
As an active participant (IEM/Intrade/GJP) in political forecasting, my own opinion is that most topics are far easier than North Korea, and when I am betting my money (or play money) on NK topics, I generally shrug and resort to simple base-rate reasoning.
I can ask my sister (who is fluent in Mandarin) to try a search for information on the internal situation in North Korea in Chinese, but I honestly doubt that there’s much more information publicly available than there is in English.