First, utter depravity was endemic among the North Koreans Jenkins encountered, but remarkably it was not universal. A few of Jenkins’ minders (”leaders”) appear to have taken extraordinary risks to show small doses of compassion and kindness. That these small doses stood out so vividly from the norm documents how depraved the country is, but also it shows that despite 60 years of genuinely Orwellian indoctrination, there remains a remnant that somehow knows that what is normal is wrong.

Second, North Korean decision-making may be more random and impulsive than rational and calculating. Jenkins says he never knew from one day to the next what would happen, that the only thing that was predictable was unpredictability. When the opportunity arose to escape, Jenkins seems not to have believed it was real because he expected the governments of Japan and US to behave in similarly random, impulsive, and unpredictable ways. Having spent almost all of his adult life in a madhouse, he seems to grown to think that madness was the norm state of affairs. This would have huge implications for policy making and implementation regarding in the US regarding NoKo, especially and obviously the vexing nuclear problem.

Third, the book suggests that, even if the Kim dictatorship ended today, reunifying Korea could be one of the most challenging and difficult “nation building” tasks ever. Millions of North Koreans would need genuine (not ideological) re-education in order to cope with Western (including South Korean) values and social mores. They are completely acculturated to graft, corruption, theft, and violence as practical norms for living. I doubt we have any idea how to replace these values, how hard it would be to do, or even thought deeply about the difficulties of bringing an entire nation out of this abyss if we are fortunate enough to get the chance. I suspect that the US Army and Marine Corps, because if their experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq, are the only organizations in the world with the competence to even attempt such an impossible task.

That’s if you think the standard of behavior we expect from our leaders is that of Kim-Jong Il.

Kind of puts the “cruelty” to the detainees at Gitmo in perspective, I think.