rosserjb@jmu.edu wrote

>OTOH, North Korea is an ethnically homogeneous
>society with a deeply Confucian heritage that the Kims
>have played into hard and heavy. 

I was talking about the probability of disintegration of NK REGIME, not disintegration NK. I did not mean that NK was culturally heterogenous.If a state as large and as powerful as fSU could cease to exist, the probability of the survival of NK in the long term are remote. IMO the "socialism" of NK type has no future.

>If there is a serious
>dissident movement, it is probably in the military.  But
>the success of such a movement, if there is one, would
>probably not mean the dissolution of North Korea,
>merely the replacement of the current ruler with somebody
>else.

Yes, that's what I meant.

>But I would not (and am not) predicting such an
>eventuality, although certainly if North Korea does collapse,
>it will probably come suddenly and unexpectedly.

I agree.

Ulhas

>Barkley Rosser