Crisis, challenge and chance

A friend mentioned Winston Churchill's quip, "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma", while referring to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's plan to launch a rocket allegedly to explore space.

"My dear friend," I said, "just look at the problem from the other side. What you have just said may only be an illustration of limits in our ability to understand others."

"What do you mean?" he said obviously bewildered. According to him, the DPRK, as a poor country, should accord priority to its people's livelihoods, at least their basic needs, and make decisions more out of concern for its people. "How then do you account for the motives of the government adhering to a project that the entire international community condemns as serious provocation?" my friend added.

"By just putting ourselves in the shoes of those who are in charge of the government in the country," I replied, "we may be on a path to understanding what is apparently incomprehensible."

"Can't you just come to the point and tell me what this is all about instead of beating about the bush?"

"I am afraid I can't," I said. "I cannot pretend to know everything. I can only attempt to fathom what is in the minds of the leaders of the country relying on the scanty evidence available to us."

"OK. Spill out what you think. I do not have a whole afternoon to listen to your lecture," my friend blurted impatiently - which is one of the typical responses around us to the DPRK.

"Given the predicament of the DPRK, the development of weapons of mass destruction is an essential part and parcel of its existence. Whatever the pressure from outside, it will not, or rather cannot, change this policy simply because it is the only thing it could do for the security of the regime."

"But it can change, and launch reform and opening-up, following the examples of some other countries," my friend interjected.

"I dare say it is not possible, or all that easy to do so. The difference is that the other countries did not have rivals within. The tragedy of the DPRK and, for that matter, some others is that it has had to stick to 'its own way', leaving no option for itself except military means, even though the world has grown out of war 'as continuation of Politik by other means'."

"So this is the root of the crisis the DPRK has been creating!" my friend said.