To understand how leaders in North Korea decide how to implement the strategy I’ve described in the past few posts, you have to look at the situation from their perspective. When a business decides its strategy, it formally deliberates and decides it. For the management team to mess up on implementing it may result in the company losing money, market share, and so on. Messing up badly can result in[…] Keep reading →

I’m using the lens of business strategy to understand the North Korean government’s strategy. That lens applies, partly because of the similarities between business and political competition, but mostly because North Korea’s situation is so simple. The three main relevant factors in competitive strategy are Keeping out competition — to have a sustainable competitive advantage — dominates strategy. Dominating geographically is often an effective strategy for a sustainable competitive advantage.[…] Keep reading →

In today’s interview, my business partner, Christina Black, asked me my best part of visiting North Korea. Small interface: [audio:https://joshuaspodek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/north_korea_greatest_lesson.mp3] Large interface:[videofile]https://joshuaspodek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/north_korea_greatest_lesson.mp3[/videofile] — EDIT: I included much of this post and this series on strategy (edited and polished) in my ebook, Understanding North Korea: Demystifying the World’s Most Misunderstood Country. I wrote the book to help increase understanding, communication, and freedom.

First a few caveats before I paint the broad strokes for the perspectives and motivations for the major players as they relate to North Korean strategy. I haven’t studied international and public affairs. I believe, nonetheless, that the broad strokes below describe the important aspects of the strategic situation. Perhaps I’m speaking out of ignorance, but I believe history backs me up: how else can you explain a regime maintaining[…] Keep reading →

The playing field for North Korean strategy, which reduces the number of relevant players, simplifies North Korea’s strategic situation more than almost anything else. Few other nations see such a combination of global importance and simplicity. The map below, from Wikipedia, shows nearly everything you need to know about the playing field. North Korea shares borders with three countries: China, South Korea, and Russia. Farther to the east lies Japan.[…] Keep reading →

If you want to plan something non-trivial, you need a strategy. If you don’t know what strategy is, you can’t make a good strategy. I’ve read one book that covers strategy better than any other — Competition Demystified: a radically simplified approach to business strategy, by Bruce Greenwald and Judd Kahn (I haven’t read On War yet but I have read Porter). While it focuses on business as opposed to[…] Keep reading →

“What can I do?” This question drives interest in North Korea perhaps more than any other after asking what it’s like. Even people who know little about the rest of the world sense something about North Korea they’d like to help with. Nobody sees what they can do. The next few posts will cover what you can do. I believe you need to understand North Korea’s situation from a strategic[…] Keep reading →