North Korea Quotes
After the Second World War Japanese industry had mostly not yet been rebuilt from the destruction of the allied bombing. The automobile industry, which before the war had aspirations of worldwide competition had been reduced to one company making less than 1000 cars a year and not many more trucks. However, when the Korean War broke out, there was a need for many military vehicles to support the allied war effort. Japan being so close and having very low labor rates had the opportunity to supply many of the needed vehicles. This allowed Nissan, Toyota and Datsun to get on their industrial feet, and from there to become world leaders. Hence, for Japan, the war was a gift from the Gods.
The irony of this quotation is that most North Koreans were conditioned to regard him as a God. There was no place in the world here people had more reverence for a leader—and in this case a brutal, dictatorial, leader.
The inconsistency of the policy logic of attacking Iraq but not the other two countries of the "axis of evil" caused problems for our British allies who preferred justifying the attack on Iraq on its own merit without any linkage to Iran and North Korea. What made the Iraq invasion even more puzzling was that both Iran and North Korea were greater dangers to the United States and expressed a deep animus.
The German reunification cost the West German citizens $1.9 Trillion over 20 years. East Germany was well behind West Germany in standard of living. However comparing South Korea—a very comfortable middle class society—with North Korea—an economic primitive basket case—produces a gap that is much wider, For example, East German infrastructure was not as well developed as West German infrastructure. North Korea has virtually no real infrastructure except a military one.
The Korean War armistice left a vulnerable border between North and South Korea and approximately 40,000 American troops were necessary for decades thereafter to protect the border.
This intelligence analysis turned out to predict exactly what happened. Less than 3 years after this report, the Communists overran South Korea and the Korean War began. See {584008} for another remarkable foreign policy prediction.
