Following the collapse of the global socialist market in the early 1990s, an unexpected thing happened on North Korea’s road to financial oblivion: The same economy that cannot produce a usable toothbrush is now armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons. I say this as someone who knows, having been involved, however obliquely, in providing the funds that made the atom splitting possible. There is much I still don’t know about my native land, but this much is clear to me: This central riddle of North Korea—advanced technology within abysmal backwardness—is wrapped in the mystery of its economic structure, and compounded by the enigma of Kim Jong-il’s opaque motives.
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