March 28, 2023
Opinion

It’s time to stop trying to predict North Korea’s collapse

Choi Sun-sil's collapse theory was rooted in Shamanism, many analyst's predictions are just as shaky

Everyone is interested in the notion that North Korea is on the verge of collapse. The idea has been around a long time, certainly since the early 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, if not before. Peter Hayes and David F. von Hippel, writing in 2011 commented:

"‘Collapsists” have been arguing since the end of the Cold War that the DPRK 'is about to collapse.'  Indeed, one notable expert and colleague, Aidan Foster-Carter, reissued his latest prediction in this vein on November 15, 2009, saying that the DPRK could “fall at any moment,”—a claim no more persuasive than that made by Foster-Carter in 1992."