Will North Korea collapse? When will it collapse? Questions North Korea researchers hear all the time, and given a recent boost after comments from President Obama mentioned Pyongyang’s collapse, followed quickly by an article and mea culpa from well-known, long-time Korea specialist Aidan Foster-Carter. Foster-Carter’s article lays out the general lines of the debate, ‘collapsism’, and 20+ years of poor policy choices by the U.S. and other governments based on the idea that “the North is going to collapse … any day now … Any. Day. Now.”
Plenty of Korea specialists have taken a stab at this parlor game of predicting Pyongyang’s fall: Foster-Carter, per above; Victor Cha, current Georgetown professor and former Director for Asian Affairs at the NSC in his 2012 book; economic specialists (e.g. Haggard and Noland). Intelligence analysts and foreign policy specialists have filled entire servers (and before that, file cabinets) with studies on when the North will collapse. Here’s one from the CIA circa 1997/98 (also here) that featured a majority of Korea specialists convened by Langley doubting the regime could last another five years (we’re coming up on 20).
Not to begrudge anyone their game, but what’s the point?