Contrary to the myth that North Korea starved because they diverted resources to their nuclear program, this piece by Jordan Weissmann in the Atlantic shows that it was the collapse of the Soviet Union and the inability of North Korea to abandon its inefficient food distribution system that led to 3 million people starving back in the 1990's: The demise of the USSR threw North Korea's entire economy into chaos, and agriculture was among its most important casualties. Without imports of cheap fuel (self-sufficiency had its limits), the country's industrial base fractured, and production of fertilizer dwindled. Farm yields plummeted, and the government started a campaign urging citizens to consume less. Its cheery slogan: "Let's eat only two meals a day." It was against this background that the Kim Jong Il took power. The country was at a crossroads, says Marcus Noland, a leading expert on North Korea at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. With the USSR gone, the...(Read Full Post)