Content area
Full Text
Predicting the future is risky business. But fundamentals are not too difficult to recognize. The most fundamental fact concerning the Korean peninsula is that North Korea cannot remain as it is. The only question is whether it will change suddenly and abruptly or gradually and incrementally. In either case, Korea will be unified. To maintain peace and security in the region, it is essential that the process of Korean unification remain a peaceful one. With luck, a unified and robust Korea will contribute to the creation of a stable multipolar equilibrium in the Northeast Asian region."
"No Way Out: North Korea's Impending Collapse"
Spring 1996
Nine years ago, I wrote "that there is a real possibility that Kim Jong Il may find himself on the way out in the next few years." Yet Kim Jong Il still rules in Pyongyang, and no sign of "impending collapse" is visible.
What happened? Why did my "prediction" go wrong?
First of all, mine was not exactly a prediction. In the 1996 article, I stated that the collapse of the Kim regime was a real possibility, implying there was also a real possibility that the collapse would not come to pass. The tide "No Way Out: North Korea's Impending Collapse" is strongly predictive. But the tide is a product of the editing process, not my own creation.
It is, however, true that the flow of my argument strongly suggested the possibility that Kim Jong Il may lose power. After protecting myself with cautious disclaimers, such as "predicting the future is a risky business," I nevertheless went on to say that "fundamentals are not too difficult to recognize. The most fundamental fact concerning the Korean peninsula is that North Korea cannot remain as it is. The only question is whether it will change suddenly and abruptly or gradually and incrementally." This is clearly a predictive statement, but one qualified by the suggestion that it is impossible to predict whether the future will be one of sudden or gradual change. Clearly, profound skepticism about man's ability to predict the future runs throughout the entire article.
Should we, then, give up entirely the ambition to decipher the future? Perhaps the more appropriate question is whether it is possible to do without assumptions...