North Korea Teetering On Edge Of Collapse?

We've been hearing about this for some time now, but Jane's is reporting that the situation has become particularly dire. It's so bad that L'il Kim is even moving assets around to make a hasty exit should things disintegrate quickly.

Kim Jong-Il's regime could collapse within six months, bringing chaos to North Korea, observers and intelligence sources in Asia have told Jane's.

A joint United States report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the US Institute for Peace has also revealed that China has "contingency plans" in the event of North Korea's implosion. The report, entitled 'Keeping an Eye on an Unruly Neighbor', said that China was prepared to "take the initiative" and had a military strategy for securing North Korea's "loose nukes" should Kim Jong-Il's rule fail.

Any apocalyptic scenario has to be taken with a grain of salt; in 1997 the Central Intelligence Agency predicted the collapse of North Korea within five years. However, there are reasons for the heightened levels of concern; in particular, the recent actions of Kim Jong-Il and other North Korean officials are being interpreted as signs that the regime is nearing its end.

One can only hope that this thuggish regime comes to a swift end, but the misery for millions of North Koreans will not end simply when L'il Kim is gone. This is a thoroughly broken country, albeit one that has nuclear weapons and military technologies useful to rogue nations around the world. China and South Korea aren't going to want anarchy on their border, and are likely to step in to the power vacuum to at least assist in a transfer of power, but how and what form that takes is completely unknown.

(Via Wretchard at Belmont Club).