Mick Hartley

Much of the commentary on the sinking of the Cheonan assumes that it's another piece of Machiavellian North Korean statecraft; another move in a complex chess game of threats and violence. The alternative view, as argued by North Korean expert Andrei Lankov, is that it is in fact another massive blunder to set alongside the recent botched currency reform, and provides more evidence that, since the stroke, the Dear Leader has lost his touch:

The North Korean elite are very good at keeping its own population docile, making protest unthinkable. They are brilliant diplomats too, knowing how to manipulate the outside world into giving them aid and concessions without too many conditions attached.

However, in recent years the North Korean government has begun to do strange things. In the past, the actions of the regime frequently hurt the populace, but the rulers have been very careful in guarding their own interests. This is not the case anymore.

Let's start with the Cheonan affair. Obviously the operation was revenge aimed at massaging the ego of aging admirals who were hurt by the recent defeats in previous naval clashes. However, revenge is a purely emotional category and as such it should have no place in a truly Machiavellian mind.

From a broader perspective, the affair will greatly diminish Pyongyang's chances to receive more aid from both South Korea and the U.S. This will make them even more dependent on China, and this is not what Pyongyang rulers want….

The North Korean diplomacy of the last two years is full of mistakes and miscalculations. They began in late 2008 when North Korea decided to employ the two-stage tactics which it used for decades.

In the first stage, Pyongyang creates a crisis and drives tensions high, while in the next stage it extracts concessions for its willingness to restore the status quo. This time, however, the usual (and well-rehearsed) play was performed badly.

In spring 2009 North Korea launched a long-range missile and tested a nuclear device, while driving the rhetoric bellicosity to unprecedented heights.

However, those excessive efforts backfired. Prior to 2009, a considerable part of the U.S. diplomatic establishment still believed that there would be some ways to bribe and press North Korea into denuclearizing itself.

By now everybody in Washington, D.C., has come to understand that it is not going to happen (they should have realized this much earlier). For North Koreans, this is bad news.

The mistaken belief in the achievability of denuclearization was the major reason why Americans used to be willing to provide North Korea with rather generous aid. Once this belief evaporated, the U.S. sees no reason to pay ― and the belief was further worn away by North Korea's inept aggressiveness…..

The list of mistakes can easily get longer. But why did the quality decision-making in Pyongyang deteriorate so suddenly and to such an extent?

The most likely explanation seems to be related to the nature of the North Korean state, a personal dictatorship run by one individual who has to approve all major decisions. Dictators tend to micro-manage, and this tendency seems to be very pronounced in the case of Kim Jong-il.

One should notice that the first unusual signs emerged in late 2008 when Kim suffered from a serious illness, in all probability, a stroke. Strokes do not sharpen one's mental capacity, so it is quite possible that his ability to analyze and judge has been damaged.

It is also possible that now Kim simply has to work much shorter hours, unable to sort out all the important details.

At any rate, Pyongyang is becoming less calculating, less rational and less Machiavellian than it used to be. And this is not good news.

Well….it may not be good news; on the other hand it could be mark the beginning of the end, and, bearing in mind that there are no scenarios where the collapse of the DPRK proceeds smoothly, surely any signs of a weakening of control are to be welcomed.