But with resources tight and the elites determined to keep their privileged status and lifestyle, something had to give. So the North Korean regime decided on a strategy of spooks and nukes:
Secret police and nuclear weapons are the new leading instruments to keep Kim Jong Il and his merry band of murderers in power. Interesting priorities given that the North Koreans like to insist they fear we will invade them at any moment.
So the army was left to rot. Yet lots of armed men are a threat so this seems like a risk for the North Korean communists to take. And now the army is being stripped of financial resources:
The North Korean armed forces have lost the power struggle with the "economic reformers" in the government. Many senior generals have been forced to retire in the past few months. The military has been stripped of many of its economic assets, mainly because of mismanagement and corruption. The police have been given the power to arrest military personnel for "economic crimes" and corruption. ...
The North Korea military has been declining for over a decade, and the government has apparently concluded that there's no point in putting a lot of money into the military when the economic situation is so dire.
The elites may have just doubled down. Strapped for resources, the regime is putting the screws to the military and perhaps hoping that discontent in the ranks will simmer but not boil for the time it takes to revive the economy enough to generate sufficient wealth to again quiet the generals.
Based on their track record on their economy, and a new South Korean government less willing to shovel money north, my guess is that Pyongyang fails.
What an unhappy but still very large army will do when the flow of goodies does not restart could make for an ugly Romanian-style meltdown.
