New York: Ecco (imprint of HarperCollins Publishers), 2012. xii, 530 pp. (Figures, graphs, tables, photos.) US$29.99, cloth. ISBN 978-0-06-199850-8.
The key message of the book is reflected in statements like: “By any metric, this poor, backward, and isolated place should have been relegated to history’s graveyard. It is a hermetically sealed Cold War anachronism” (7). The author, a professor at Georgetown University who spent the years 2004–2007 as director for Asian Affairs in the National Security Council under George W. Bush, sets out to explain why North Korea nevertheless exists.
The book is organized into ten chapters. It starts with a personal account of Cha’s impressions during his only visit to North Korea in 2006. He repeats a few stereotypes, such as empty roads and inferior facilities. High-tech must be imported from China by circumventing sanctions; remarks made by North Koreans about peace and friendship with the USA must be a sign of secret opposition against the regime. North Korean fears are unfounded: “I have said to North Korean interlocutors, that this [a US invasion of North Korea] is about the craziest assertion they could make” (11). Concerning the state of affairs on the peninsula, Cha argues that “the problem is not the United States, stupid” (275). In a table that stretches from page 307 to page 314, Cha lists US security assurances to North Korea from 1989 to the end of 2010.
Chapter 2 shows convincingly that the legacy of the Cold War is still alive on the Korean peninsula. Cha reminds the reader that a few decades ago, North Korea was a prosperous country, although I would not take some of the details such as an average calorie intake per day of 3,000 at face value. Cha is critical of South Korea under Syngman Rhee and Park Chung-hee, and outspoken about nationalism in both Koreas. He is among the few Western writers who seem to have grasped the meaning of chuch’e, including its non-Marxist nature, the close connection to nationalism, and the fact that it manipulates but nevertheless allows cooperation with the outside world.
In particular in chapter 3, Cha ridicules the Kim dynasty, which makes the book more entertaining but affects its credibility as a product of serious scholarship. The section on the top leadership nicely summarizes what is thought to be known about this field of Pyongyangology. In chapter 4, the North Korean economy is explained through five historical “bad choices” made by the mafia-like leadership. Cha has little sympathy for “high-minded scholars” who naively point at positive aspects of life in North Korea which is, beyond the capital, “the worst place on earth” and a “dark kingdom.” The reader learns that many buildings have no windows and even in Pyongyang, taxis are “orange, rusted, and with no windows” (163f).
Chapter 6 starts with the scenario of a military attack by North Korea. No nuclear weapons are included, but 5,000 metric tons of chemical agents are repeatedly mentioned. The nuclear program does receive its fair share of attention, in particular in chapter 7, which is devoted to its complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantlement. Cha skeptically concludes that North Korea wants an “India deal,” i.e., to be accepted as a nuclear weapons state, in order to prolong the current regime forever. He hits the nail on the head when he asks: “Would they be sharing toasts with these icons of US foreign policy if they were just from a poor country without nukes?” (428). The North Korea policy of China, Russia and Japan is covered in chapter 8. Chapter 9 is devoted to inter-Korean relations, focusing on unification, which is regarded as a major but inevitable challenge.
The final chapter is titled “The end is near.” Pointing at the Arab Spring, the end of North Korea is predicted although “signs of a modernizing consumer-oriented society are just not present” (438). Cha identifies the urban poor as the most likely source of discontent and concludes with five policy principles that the US government should follow until “the fateful day [of North Korea’s implosion] comes” (455): patience, sanctions, negotiation, preparation for unification, and a focus on the people.
As with any book on current affairs, it is natural that some information is outdated. There are factual errors such as the allegation that “the only monument to the late leader [Kim Jong Il]… sits in front of the Yongbyon nuclear complex” (11). For a book published in 2012, it is odd to read that North Koreans “still line up on the street thirty-deep to use a public phone” (12). It is questionable to assume that in 1972 “Moscow believed that such grandeur … [a large Kim Il Sung statue] should only be reserved for Stalin” (79); Lenin at that time would have been the only appropriate choice. Cha’s readiness to repeat stories about a single 120-calorie Choco Pie selling on North Korea’s unofficial markets for US$9.50 a piece (155) is striking, in particular if we consider that one kilogram of white rice costs less than a dollar. This would point at an unrealistically high level of affluence and the absence of any food shortage.
On many points, Cha is very much in line with the thinking of other experts. What I called “socialist neoconservativism” is described as “neojuche revivalism.” But while I agree that most North Koreans have never heard of Elvis Presley or Michael Jackson, I am not sure whether that is a major deficiency. How many Americans, despite the Internet, know Russia’s star singer-songwriter Vladimir Vyssotsky?
The book is well written and easily readable. It targets a general market and is thus not too obviously based on a rigorous theoretical framework. This limits the utility as a course book, but makes it well suited as supplementary reading, especially for those who are interested in understanding the mindset underlying the North Korea policy of the George W. Bush administration and the conservative spectrum of policy makers and their advisors in Washington. The latter is the major strength of the book.
Rudiger Frank
University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
pp. 164-166