B.R. Myers.

This is coolbert:

The American professor, scholar, and observer of all things Korean B.R. Myers is being interviewed on National Public Radio [NPR] this evening.

Listen to the interview at the NPR web site:

"'A Look At North Korean Ideology' - - Robert Siegel talks to BR Myers, author of the book 'The Cleanest Race: How the North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters'"

At a time of upheaval [?], drastic [?] and unsettled change in North Korea [DPRK] the observations and comments of Myers are most germane? All American diplomats, general officers and persons concerned with the Korean scene should pay close attention to and heed the admonitions and teachings of B.R.?

B.R. iconoclastic but nonetheless enunciating well-thought-out positions that cannot be ignored.

"Brian Reynolds Myers . . .  is an American associate professor of international studies at Dongseo University in Busan, South Korea, a contributing editor for the Atlantic, and an opinion columnist for the New York Times and Wall Street Journal."

As extracted from the wiki entry for B.R.:

"'The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters' is an examination of North Korean propaganda, arguing that North Korea under Kim Jong Il was guided by 'a paranoid, race-based nationalism with roots in Japanese fascism.' Myers argues that North Korea's political system is not based on Communism or Stalinism, and that the juche ideology [self-reliance] is not really an ideology at all but a sham to establish Kim Il-sung's credentials as a thinker. More provocatively, Myers argues that the more recent post Cold War attempts to understand North Korea as a Confucian patriarchy based on the filial piety of Kim Jong-Il, and the dynastic transfer of power from his father are equally misguided, and that the North Korean leadership is maternalist rather than paternalist."

That North Korean populace even more so than the population of South Korea [ROK] that most racially pure and isolated group of people on the planet with almost NO outside admixture? Possessing a "paranoid race-based nationalism" the hatred of the perceived foreign invader [America] most [overwhelmingly so] strong.

It is THUS that the DPRK can best be understood??

From that wiki again some additional links to items by B.R. Myers:

"To Beat a Dictator, Ignore Him"

"North Korea Will Never Disarm"

"Mother of All Mothers - - The leadership secrets of Kim Jong Il"

A nation "paranoid" and having a "race-based nationalism" and ALSO possessing nuclear weapons makes for a bad mix? Undeniably so, and especially in the case when the man at the controls is a callow youth of less than thirty years of age!! B.R. Myers better than most understands the predicament as faced by the outside world for which there is no easy fix or amelioration!

coolbert.