>>64018017
It seems to me like he just got lucky that Russia's government willingly threw itself into a shit situation and has nobody else to support them, so NK has a ton of leverage in any deal they make.
No matter how much of this is down to luck though, they're clearly handling the opportunity very intelligently, considering they're using it to develop the country's agricultural sector instead of just buying themselves yachts and palaces like their Russia counterparts seem to enjoy doing.
Actually, on that topic, is this going to make NK more or less of a threat in the future? On one hand, being less dependent on food aid means that we have less leverage to tell them to chill the fuck out, but on the other hand, better food security might instead mean they're less likely to do anything rash out of desperation (which iirc was a big part of why the US government permitted/supported Kruschev's corn purchase)
