Pattern of Collapse in North Korea

The purpose of this paper is to examine foreseeable patterns of social infrastructure collapse, as brought on by severe resource shortage, and to provide a perspective of the subsequent effects upon the nKorean administrative and political systems.  This paper will discuss general, baseline political consequences resulting from these shortages, and link these consequences to a framework of phases leading to the collapse of the nKorean administrative and political systems. This examination employs assessments based in structure-functionalism analyses of the nKorean administrative system coupled with behavioral analyses of historical Korean socio-political patterns (though the details of those analyses are not included in this paper). This paper will avoid discussion of war except as a calculated alternative to prevent irreparable fracture to the nKorean political system, which would be perceived by the current leadership as the end of their regime.