"In some ways she was far more acute than Winston, and far less susceptible to Party propaganda. Once when he happened in some connexion to mention the war against Eurasia, she startled him by saying casually that in her opinion the war was not happening. The rocket bombs which fell daily on London were probably fired by the Government of Oceania itself, " just to keep people frightened ". This was an idea that had literally never occurred to him."
Nineteen-Eighty-Four, Chapter 13
North Korea's actions are always unexpected. Perhaps we can never know the actual operations behind, but to figure out the motivations may not be as difficult.
In a totalitarian state, there is no real laws, and therefore no real 'government'. Instead, the state is ruled by several military leaders, who play endless games of power conflict internally. Diplomacy is like other internal affairs, which can increase the bargaining power of some rulers. Therefore internal conflicts become international. One must remember that the same mechanism gave birth to the Japanese invasion to China in 1937, as well as the Soviet invasion to Afghanistan in 1979.
On the other hand, since the rulers cannot tolerate any groups with different political view, a non-democratic regime has to gain legitimacy through apolical means. They have to find some other ways to buy support from the people (e.g. the economic boom of PRC shows how a government can "buy" support literally), or to keep the people misinformed such that they won't consider other alternatives (e.g. the internet Great Wall of PRC), or simply to frighten the people from acting against the government, through either real or fictitions brute force.
Another common way is to maintain a sense that the state is in danger, and therefore the frightened people are willing (both intentional and unintentional) to surrender their freedom to the government. The Cultural Revolution is for sure the masterpiece constructed under this thought, while North Korea is doing something similar till now. A fake war may not be too crazy.
Democratic states do the same thing, though in a much shorter time scale. Most of the elected presidents and parties can only rule four or five years. What they have to do is to do something eyecatching (e.g. to play with the terror threat level system) at the last several months and the people with poor memory will be willing to die for them.
“「這是一般市民對我們評議會的支持率，不算很好。」
百份比三十一．九這個數字和列席者們猜想的相去不遠。
議長留意著他們的反應，繼續說道。「這樣下去是無法在明年將至的選舉中獲勝的。可以預見得到，在和平派和強硬派侯選人的前後挾擊之下，我們將會被挖去過半以上的票數，各位再看看這裡……」
「根據電腦的預測，如果能在一百天之內取得對帝國軍事上的決定性勝利的話，支持率最低將可上升十五個百分點。」 ”
銀河英雄傳說，第六章
In a coming article, I will talk about Myanmar, another country of isolation and paranoia. It will be real observations instead of speculations.
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