That book was a huge eye-opener to me. It's practically a Nazi-level concentration camp situation, but because they're only doing it to their own people and one of their allies is China, the world does nothing.
The world would have watched Hitler in peace too, had he not decided to blast through Belgium into Paris. After that the world watched China end the lives of tens of millions (as many as, or more than the entire NK population) during the Cultural Revolution. The world watches as Boko Haram and countless other organizations murder and rape their way across Africa. The world watches as Qatar puts on the most impressively visible modern example of slavery, and what does the world do? Remain excited with the sport and the event. The world watches as organized crime and cartels wage paramilitary war against the Mexican people, dropping busloads of kids into mass graves. The world watches as political islamic extremists take advantage of crumbling governments in Syria and Iraq to murder, steal, kidnap, and destroy across the region.
Point is: the world watches a lot of things, and when someone like the US steps in, they are lambasted as no greater than the evil we expect them be willing to fight.
North Korea remains unmolested purely because it does not molest other countries. If they do, China will aggressively end that behavior or implicitly allow the US to so through inaction.
and of course, https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=315&v=0ypIwK6OlFc
I do not in any circumstances blame any leader personally for these things, and I definitely do not associate the actions of the US with the citizens of the US, and I also know that even if the US would've been the most peaceful, least aggressive superpower, some other nation might've done worse things. But I think that the world would be a much better place if the US would've "stepped in" in different ways, or even if they would've not done anything of what in the links are mentioned. (and of course I only scratched the surface here)
there are in the perfect situation to do evil and get away with it.
Even funding a insurgency would be difficult. the population is so downtrodden they must have forgotten what freedom is (think 1984). the penalty for disobedience is your entire family in a concentration camp.
What would you have the world do? Invade like the US did to Iraq, causing a million deaths?
On a wackier, cantankerous note, I also envision a scheme of dropping solar-charged epaper tablets and blasting the entire country with free WiFi to make locking down knowledge about the outside world impossible.
I'm firmly against outright military intervention (no drones either).
What would the value be to the NK leadership to do that? Worrying about the well being of the population? I think they've made it pretty clear that's not really high on the list of priorities.
As you said, they stay in power by keeping people in the dark. No one voluntarily gives up power.
Also, you might find the Frontline story on North Korea interesting.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/secret-state-of-nort...
That wouldn't fly with them. Their entire governmental ideology is based upon something called "Juche" which means 'self reliance'. It would kinda be like asking the US to give up the first amendment in exchange for some trade goodies. Just not gonna happen.
>The NK leadership's power is retained almost entirely through keeping people in the dark.
This isn't true. People are not in the dark as much as you might think. They are vaguely aware of what goes on outside the country's borders. It would be impossible for them not to be. This is partly why a year ago the NK government released a list of "best places in the world to live". China was #1 because North Koreans are able to watch the Chinese get rich and the government couldn't deny it.
The leadership's power is predicated mostly upon two things :
A) Propaganda that makes the citizens afraid of the outside world - US and Japan mostly. Unfortunately, when the US does shit like invade Iraq, saber rattle Iran, and sticks nukes on the 38th parallel (did you not wonder why NK developed nukes? THAT'S why), it's not that hard to convince North Koreans that they are under mortal threat. The strong censorship helps a lot with this, but the propaganda would probably still hold pretty well without it.
B) A gift economy. The leader showers his underlings with maseratis. He showers his underlings with jewellery. He showers his underlings with alcohol. Etcetera. All the way down. The hierarchy is very well cemented in by strong ties of loyalty. Chop off the head and all of that remains.
>On a wackier, cantankerous note, I also envision a scheme of dropping solar-charged epaper tablets and blasting the entire country with free WiFi to make locking down knowledge about the outside world impossible.
This type of thing has been going on for a long time (hell, we've had short wave radios for how long?). It doesn't really seem to be working.
Yes, the North Koreans get this stuff sometimes, but seeing a DVD of Friends doesn't immediately inspire them to overthrow their government and the smart ones are rightfully terrified of owning such contraband.
I'd be more optimistic about this strategy, too, if propaganda didn't work so well on American citizens, who have all of those things and yet still believe absurd lies fed to them by their leaders.