> When serving in Iraq or Iran, my biggest fear in those places was always the threat of physical harm, be it ambushes on our person or vehicles, being kidnapped, rocket or mortar attacks on our embassy or accommodation. There were close shaves and the threat and the fear never left you in all of these places.
But as far as life in North Korea was concerned, there were none of these fears. Serving in North Korea gave you this strange feeling of being cut off, isolated and very insular and perversely at the same time “safe.”
When one invades the country, they of course won't feel safety (like in Iraq), but when they dont invade country, of course it feels safe, because no one is bombing and shooting locals
I remember one Polish diplomat recalling that his boss told him "I am sending you to the safest outpost in the world" when offering him embassy in North Korea.
"North Korea’s border with South Korea is a disputed border as both countries claim the entirety of the Korean Peninsula." - I did not know South Korea felt this way!
That does sound a bit agressive. To be clear, South Korea doesn't so much 'claim the entirety of the Korean Peninsula' as much as it aims to unify the entire peninsula into a single country through peaceful means (at least, since the military government left power in the late '80s).
This article is also from 2021 and things have changed a bit in the North. North Korea changed their constitution a couple of years ago and removed any mention of unification with the South, and defined their territory as basically the existing North/South split (aka 38th parallel). South Korea has been redefined from 'partner in national unity' to 'enemy to be destroyed, by nuclear weapons if need be'.
There's a lot of pretty interesting analysis of North Korea at the 38 North blog (https://www.38north.org/), among other good sources.
FWIW, this is no longer true for North Korea: a few years back they removed all references to reunification from the constitution and designated South Korea as an enemy state. They even refer to it by its South Korean name now (Hanguk/Daehanminguk), instead of the previous Namchoson.
I was fascinated to learn while visiting they consider themselves ‘at war’ and generations from a unified time still strongly believe in the cause.
In tech specifically this leads to some surprising results such as transit planning being very ineffective or broken in google maps due to onshore data storage requirements. Subway alignments are regarded as sensitive info
>I was fascinated to learn while visiting they consider themselves ‘at war’
fun fact, Japan and Russia are technically in a state of war too. The World War II hasn't ended. They have never signed a treaty over the Kuril Islands, and they both claim them.
According to wikipedia
"Japan and the Soviet Union ended their formal state of war with the Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956 but did not sign a peace treaty."
Indeed the fighting ended in an armistice so the war was never legally declared to be over. Visiting the DMZ between the countries is a surreal experience - part tense stand-off, part theme park.
Can't open the article, so maybe it was already mentioned. But not only does South Korea claim the entire Peninsula, they even consider North Koreans as South Korean citizens.
> Did you get many opportunities to travel within the country?
> Surprisingly yes.
And surprisingly title is: "How To Survive 3 Years in NK"
These people are so biased, they show that bias even when they don't have anything bad to say. Poor people in that country might say how to survive, but not a member of diplomatic corpus
The less snarky answer is that our current system does not have a functioning global government. There is no real “we”. Influencing how other countries operate can only be done by force or diplomacy, and because North Korea has nuclear weapons, force is basically off the table, and they’re not interested in diplomacy.
IIRC, one of the highest profile North Korean defectors said that Jimmy Carter's interference in Bill Clinton's strategy vis-a-vis North Korea, basically gave North Korea another decade to build an atom bomb. After that regime got the bomb, they became un-invadeable.
North Korea is geopolitically useful as a buffer state between the United States' sphere of influence in South Korea, and China. China has defended it pretty determinedly, historically.
You don't even need China. They have the Hwasong-17 and nukes and would very likely use them to retaliate. There's a reason they were quite keen to develop nuclear weapons and missiles capable of delivering them to the US mainland.
Even short of a nuclear response Seoul is in range of conventional artillery from North Korea and is dug in enough you couldn't destroy them all before the were able to do significant damage to Seoul.
None of my friends in a Venezuela have noticed any actual improvements after Maduro. The current president was appointed by Maduro and was VP for 6 (?) years. I know some political prisoners are released, but if you are looking at suffering on country-level I don't think anything has changed.
- An enormous amount of artillery pointed at South Korea. South Korea would likely suffer the worst outcome in any intervention into North Korea.
- A nuclear-armed power who is truly ideological. Unlike Maduro, merely killing the leader is unlikely to dissuade the North Koreans. (a lesson the Trump admin is currently learning in Iran)
Why? Because the poor are starving? North Korea has ultra-wealthy ... it works a bit differently but there is massive inequality, and there is extreme wealth.
It’s about 3 (I think? Been a while since I watched) US soldiers that defected to NK during the Korean War. One dude stayed for decades and defended NK intensely in this doc, going so far as to star in propaganda movies against the US while he was there. Wild stuff
Most interesting observation:
> When serving in Iraq or Iran, my biggest fear in those places was always the threat of physical harm, be it ambushes on our person or vehicles, being kidnapped, rocket or mortar attacks on our embassy or accommodation. There were close shaves and the threat and the fear never left you in all of these places. But as far as life in North Korea was concerned, there were none of these fears. Serving in North Korea gave you this strange feeling of being cut off, isolated and very insular and perversely at the same time “safe.”
Why is it interesting observation?
When one invades the country, they of course won't feel safety (like in Iraq), but when they dont invade country, of course it feels safe, because no one is bombing and shooting locals
I remember one Polish diplomat recalling that his boss told him "I am sending you to the safest outpost in the world" when offering him embassy in North Korea.
I am not surprised that NK will be perceived as safer and more isolated than Iraq.
"North Korea’s border with South Korea is a disputed border as both countries claim the entirety of the Korean Peninsula." - I did not know South Korea felt this way!
That does sound a bit agressive. To be clear, South Korea doesn't so much 'claim the entirety of the Korean Peninsula' as much as it aims to unify the entire peninsula into a single country through peaceful means (at least, since the military government left power in the late '80s).
This article is also from 2021 and things have changed a bit in the North. North Korea changed their constitution a couple of years ago and removed any mention of unification with the South, and defined their territory as basically the existing North/South split (aka 38th parallel). South Korea has been redefined from 'partner in national unity' to 'enemy to be destroyed, by nuclear weapons if need be'.
There's a lot of pretty interesting analysis of North Korea at the 38 North blog (https://www.38north.org/), among other good sources.
FWIW, this is no longer true for North Korea: a few years back they removed all references to reunification from the constitution and designated South Korea as an enemy state. They even refer to it by its South Korean name now (Hanguk/Daehanminguk), instead of the previous Namchoson.
I was fascinated to learn while visiting they consider themselves ‘at war’ and generations from a unified time still strongly believe in the cause.
In tech specifically this leads to some surprising results such as transit planning being very ineffective or broken in google maps due to onshore data storage requirements. Subway alignments are regarded as sensitive info
>I was fascinated to learn while visiting they consider themselves ‘at war’
fun fact, Japan and Russia are technically in a state of war too. The World War II hasn't ended. They have never signed a treaty over the Kuril Islands, and they both claim them.
According to wikipedia "Japan and the Soviet Union ended their formal state of war with the Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956 but did not sign a peace treaty."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuril_Islands_dispute
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_Joint_...
Indeed the fighting ended in an armistice so the war was never legally declared to be over. Visiting the DMZ between the countries is a surreal experience - part tense stand-off, part theme park.
Can't open the article, so maybe it was already mentioned. But not only does South Korea claim the entire Peninsula, they even consider North Koreans as South Korean citizens.
> Could you go out on your own for a walk?
> Surprisingly yes.
> Did you get many opportunities to travel within the country?
> Surprisingly yes.
And surprisingly title is: "How To Survive 3 Years in NK"
These people are so biased, they show that bias even when they don't have anything bad to say. Poor people in that country might say how to survive, but not a member of diplomatic corpus
- how is life in north korea?
- can't complain!
https://archive.ph/RkSoY
My corp firewall blocks archive dot ph
https://web.archive.org/web/20250409223505/https://mydiploma...
Mine blocks both! and .is. I get it it's an exfiltration risk for uploads but it's rough.
(2021) Previous discussion in 2024: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40937973
Why do we keep tolerating that regime which makes 26 mln people suffer? Why can't we do Operation a la Maduro there?
The less snarky answer is that our current system does not have a functioning global government. There is no real “we”. Influencing how other countries operate can only be done by force or diplomacy, and because North Korea has nuclear weapons, force is basically off the table, and they’re not interested in diplomacy.
Because they would shell Seoul and have nukes [0] and a rocket program...
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_and_weapons_of_mas...
I don't know who "we" is, but assassinating or kidnapping foreigners is illegal.
Also, it didn't work. Not in Iran and not even in Venezuela.
IIRC, one of the highest profile North Korean defectors said that Jimmy Carter's interference in Bill Clinton's strategy vis-a-vis North Korea, basically gave North Korea another decade to build an atom bomb. After that regime got the bomb, they became un-invadeable.
> Why do we keep tolerating that regime which makes 26 mln people suffer
National sovereignty. If most of the world didn't agree with this way of life, Americans would have been liberated a long time ago.
American hegemony is over, better get used to no longer being the world's sheriff.
North Korea is geopolitically useful as a buffer state between the United States' sphere of influence in South Korea, and China. China has defended it pretty determinedly, historically.
You don't even need China. They have the Hwasong-17 and nukes and would very likely use them to retaliate. There's a reason they were quite keen to develop nuclear weapons and missiles capable of delivering them to the US mainland.
Even short of a nuclear response Seoul is in range of conventional artillery from North Korea and is dug in enough you couldn't destroy them all before the were able to do significant damage to Seoul.
[0] https://missilethreat.csis.org/missile/hwasong-17/
NK is so heavily militarised and culturally isolated that an extraordinary rendition is likely to backfire even more so than they typically do.
None of my friends in a Venezuela have noticed any actual improvements after Maduro. The current president was appointed by Maduro and was VP for 6 (?) years. I know some political prisoners are released, but if you are looking at suffering on country-level I don't think anything has changed.
Nuclear ballistic ammo… they are insane enough that there non-zero probability they could use them against anybody.
Also comrades from other countries would probably support them.
It’s too close to China & Russia, whereas Venezuela had nobody in the vicinity that could help respond.
North Korean has won, once they had nukes and ICBMs they became untouchable.
tbf, they already had artillery pointed at 10 million people, enough to commit an atrocity. The nukes were just the frosting on the cake.
Uhh, because Seoul is a big city and right next door? Is this not abundantly obvious? Also, China has influence here which is a secondary reason
The general concerns are:
- An enormous amount of artillery pointed at South Korea. South Korea would likely suffer the worst outcome in any intervention into North Korea.
- A nuclear-armed power who is truly ideological. Unlike Maduro, merely killing the leader is unlikely to dissuade the North Koreans. (a lesson the Trump admin is currently learning in Iran)
Define "we"
Seems a problem with the site not loading
HN effect
Someone re-archived (archive.is) the loading error. Ugh. Lol.
Based on the topic, this could be intentional.
Given how frequently a hug of death occurs on HN, no downtime would also have to be considered suspicious.
Playing golf in North Korea sounds crazy.
Why? Because the poor are starving? North Korea has ultra-wealthy ... it works a bit differently but there is massive inequality, and there is extreme wealth.
So kind of like USA but different?
Seems like every other post from this site is [dead]
For another interesting perspective, folks should check out Crossing the Line - https://youtu.be/W3L1JemU8hA?is=3SQszuI5s45z7i2W
It’s about 3 (I think? Been a while since I watched) US soldiers that defected to NK during the Korean War. One dude stayed for decades and defended NK intensely in this doc, going so far as to star in propaganda movies against the US while he was there. Wild stuff