Looking back, the North Korean regime was at it’s weakest during the 1990s’, with the country losing most of their economic and trade partners in the Eastern Bloc with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The lost of subsidized cheap oil from the Soviets hit the North Koreans particularly hard, as it heavily affected their industrial production capacity. But against almost everyone’s expectations, the Kim dynasty was able to retain control of the country.
But what if nature decided to, as the Chinese saying goes, ‘Throw rocks down at a man drowning in a well’ while the regime was at it’s weakest?
Let’s say that a series of unfortunate natural disasters were to hit the country in the 1990s’, with a devastating floods ravaged up to 30% of the country’s limited arable lands and destroying their grain reserves, together with over half of their power generation capacity due to flood damage to country’s production infrastructure, crippling their already oil starved industry.
Would the resulting famine, which will rival the Holodomor or the Great Leap Forward, be enough to topple the North Korea regime? Or will it force Kim Il Song to enact economic reforms in order to gain much needed foreign reserves, resulting in the country slowly opening up?