One of the most basic facts about North Korea is that this country seems to be unstable in the long run. In spite of some economic improvements of the recent decade, it still remains very poor if compared to all its neighbours, and this gap keeps growing. The Kim family regime can maintain the stability for long time, but the information about the success of other countries — above all, South Korea — is filtering in, and gradually ferments discontent. — Andrei Lankov, AlJazeera
This is a simple statement of situation: where the question of stability directly relates to the amount of energy available to the system. All systems have a certain instability directly related to the size of their energy sources. Food, hydrocarbons, and other resources are not easily available to the Regime, causing upward tending instability. Hierarchic control exerted from the ‘seat’ of power (where resource energy flows are dictated) projects flow protocols downward, but when that projection of power has itself a diminishing source, control structures destabilize.
Both the projection ‘structure’ and the actual energy needed to ‘project’ power are never sufficient to maintain control of the population indefinitely. Nor, in reciprocal, are those factors sufficient to ‘motivate’ the population to give unreservedly of its own energy in support of the Regime. Any Regime must maintain in deep and aware consciousness that its primary source of power is, at base, the embodied energy of its people. In more recent times, technological concentrations of power allow this fact to be distorted significantly, but in the end, no Regime will survive a collective turning away of its vassal citizen’s energy and attention. The technological factor, if effectively wielded by a Regime, will allow profound imbalances to build up, imbalances that will inevitably cause catastrophic re-balancing. The nuclear ambitions of North Korea are likely the major contributing factor to the imbalance within the technological factor. Between that and the large standing army, energies that could possibly go to support the ‘regular’ citizen are shunted off to support the rigid command-and-control structures necessary to develop and deploy the nuclear deterrent and the armed forces.
Resistance is futile when a system is returning to dynamic equilibrium. Only another profound energy source will enable a return to a subsequent form of temporary stability. Otherwise, disorder at many levels ensues.
All these concepts apply to any nation-state, and to any system.