"북한 정권, 10년 안에 붕괴" - 내셔널 인터레스트 Doomsday: The Coming Collapse of North Korea

미 아시아 전문가 '제이미 메츨(Jamie Metzl) 

애틀랜틱카운슬 수석연구원 주장

source invest-smart.org

edited by kcontents 

케이콘텐츠 편집

북한 정권이 10년 내에 붕괴할 것이라는 주장이 제기됐다. 미국의 아시아 전문가인 제이미 메츨 애틀랜틱카운슬 수석연구원은 14일(현지시간) 외교안보 전문지 '내셔널 인터레스트'에 기고한 글을 통해 "북한 정권이 생존하는 데 필요한 요소들이 상호 모순적이며, 이런 모순의 심화로 인해 북한 정권이 약 10년 안에 붕괴될 것"이라고 예견했다.  메츨 연구원은 북한 정권의 생존에 필요한 요소로 핵무기를 비롯해 북한 주민들에 대해 공포를 줄 능력, 그리고 경제 자원을 동원할 능력을 꼽았다. 그러나 이 세 가지 요소는 상호 모순된 작용을 일으킨다는 데 문제가 있다고 메츨 연구원은 분석했다.  예컨대 북한이 강력한 힘을 가지기 위해서는 핵이 필수인데, 핵개발에 매달릴수록 중국과의 관계가 냉각되면서 중국에 주로 의존하던 경제가 위축되는 현상이 나타나고 있다. 이는 다시 주민들에 대한 공포를 불러일으키기가 어려워지게 하고 있다는 지적이다.  그는 북한 정권의 붕괴가 북한 주민을 포함한 한국인은 물론 중국에도 이익이 될 것이라며, 북한 정권이 무너지면 한시적인 유엔의 관리와 선거를 통해 한반도에 통일된 정치체제가 만들어질 수 있을 것이라고 내다봤다.  한편 러시아의 한반도문제 전문가인 게오르기 톨로라야 모스크바 국제관계대학 교수는 미국 워싱턴D.C.에서 열린 토론회에 참석해 "북한의 붕괴 가능성은 (대기근을 겪었던) 1990년대보다 낮다"는 의견을 보였다.  [글로벌이코노믹] 노정용 기자 noja@

Doomsday: The Coming Collapse of North Korea

Jamie Metzl As a member of the U.S. National Security Council staff in the later 1990s, I worked with colleagues on plans for responding to the potential collapse of the North Korean government. As a self-induced famine ravaged the country, we considered what we might do when the regime finally succumbed to the inevitable consequence of its own insanity.  Almost twenty years later, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is still there and those predicting its imminent collapse have continually been proven wrong. But today, the North Korean madness may well be nearing its endgame. I predict it will be gone within a decade. The continued survival of North Korea’s government is based on its ability to harness absolute terror against its population, its possession of nuclear weapons, and its access to economic resources. Although North Korea requires all three of these to survive, contradictions between what it takes to secure each will make the regime’s demise all but inevitable over time. Terror against its people stands at the core of the North Korean system. The UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the DPRK reports “systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations” including torture, murder, rape, and mass gulags containing over 120,000 people in what the Commission believes constitute “crimes against humanity.” Without deploying terror to control every aspect of people’s lives, the regime would collapse. After witnessing the first Gulf War, where Saddam Hussein was more vulnerable to invasion because Iraq did not possess nuclear weapons, Pyongyang accelerated its own nuclear program. North Korea has now conducted three nuclear tests, fired a ballistic missile from a submarine, and is racing forward with nuclear miniaturization and weaponization. The further development of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, however, will ultimately put it at odds with China, its essential benefactor. North Korea’s only meaningful trading partner, China provides Pyongyang with 90 percent of its energy imports and most of the food going to its military. Beijing has carefully struck a balance between gently pressuring North Korea to slow its nuclear program and maintaining the DPRK through aid, primarily because China fears U.S. troops on its border in case of collapse. But because North Korea’s continued nuclear weapons push will justify the U.S. military’s ongoing rebalancing to the Asia-Pacific, the acceleration of missile defenses in South Korea and Japan that will undermine China’s nuclear deterrent, and Japan’s active reconsideration of its military capabilities, China’s need to keep a lid on North Korea’s nuclear program will ultimately conflict with the DPRK’s nuclear drive. Moreover, China will rightly come to perceive the North’s nuclear program as being designed primarily to limit Beijing’s influence over Pyongyang.  This will likely prove unacceptable to the Chinese, who will be forced to increase economic pressure on North Korea by reducing aid, making China-DPRK relations decline even more than they have since the 2013 execution of Jang Song-Taek, Kim Jong-Un’s uncle and the then-point person in North Korea-China ties. Recognizing the potential for reduced Chinese assistance, Pyongyang has begun looking for other financial options. Its longtime friend Russia, relishing these days in poking the West, would be a good choice but for its ongoing financial crisis. South Korea, which once provided significant aid to the North for little in return under former President Kim Dae Jung’s “Sunshine Policy,” will not be fooled again without significant concessions. With few options for aid, economic reform will by default become the North’s only real choice. In fact, North Korea’s leaders have recently come to this realization and minor economic reforms allowing managers to set wages and farmers to keep more of their harvest have begun. Economic reform, however, cannot work in North Korea without political reform. Greater access to information and freer movement of people and goods are essential underpinnings of a reforming economy.  These same reforms would also undermine the legitimacy of the regime and ultimately force it to choose between shutting down economic reform to maintain totalitarian control or allowing the spark of political change to ignite that will, over time, become inextinguishable. With no logical path forward, the DPRK government will collapse under the weight of its own contradictions, as we may already be seeing in the recent wave of high-level executions. The good news is that this collapse has the potential to be a win-win for nearly everyone. The North Korean people will end their terrible suffering, North and South Korea will be reunified under South Korean law, potentially following a UN-administered transitional period and referendum, the specter of a rogue nuclear nation at the heart of Asia will be removed, and China will gain a valuable trading partner in a unified Korea and access to Seoul’s high tech economy and northern Korea’s natural resources through high quality rail, road, and communications links. American troops could even be maintained below the 38th parallel to ease China’s fears of encirclement, with the long-term international relations of a unified Korea being up to the Korean people. North Korea is a historical relic, destabilizing force, and human rights abomination. The Korean people and the world will be far better off without it. Jamie Metzl is author of Genesis Code and a Senior Fellow of the Atlantic Council. He served in the U.S. National Security Council, State Department, and Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Follow him on Twitter @JamieMetzl. http://www.nationalinterest.org/feature/doomsday-the-coming-collapse-north-korea-13107

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