NK’s BLACK SWAN

WHEN NORTH KOREA FALLS . . .

Fareed Zakaria

The Washington Post, October 18, 2010

The most important lesson to have come out of the financial crisis is to worry about "black swans." These are, in Nassim Nicholas Taleb's formulation, events that are unlikely but with the potential to cause major disruption. In geopolitics there is one such event that should have us all thinking hard -- the collapse of North Korea.

Most of Washington's attention has been devoted to the Pyongyang regime's small nuclear arsenal. But perhaps a more likely scenario, and possibly one that would be even more disruptive, is a meltdown of the regime.

As Christopher Hill, the veteran diplomat who led the U.S. team that negotiated with the North Koreans, pointed out to me in Seoul last week, the situation in North Korea sounds like a story out of medieval Europe. An aging king, who rules in strange ways but with total power, finally names an heir -- his youngest son. The 27-year-old has little experience with arms or government, so his father appoints a regent. The regent is his brother-in-law and, further consolidating the family's tight grip, the king gives his sister a high military rank.

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