George Kennan's 1948 Policy Planning Staff Memorandum - The inauguration of organized political warfare.

I really think a review of this memorandum is useful because I think many of our adversaries have adopted various methods from this document (with their own characteristics of course).  Although this was written as a US centric description; like the current Unconventional Warfare definition in Joint Pub 1-02 it does not have to be US centric and in fact explains and describes what is happening around the world such as in Crimea and Ukraine but also by others  such as the Chinese and their “Three Warfares,”  Iran in Syria and other operations by the Quds force, and even Al Qaeda – using terrorism as part of its UW strategy in an attempt to coerce and disrupt and in some cases overthrow governments.

Although we might shy away from conducting organized political warfare, many other nations and groups do not.  It is best for us to understand it.

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/history/johnson/65ciafounding3.htm

269. Policy Planning Staff Memorandum 
Washington, May 4, 1948.

//Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 273, Records of the National Security Council,
NSC 10/2. Top Secret. No drafting information appears on the source text. An earlier, similar version, April 30,
is ibid., RG 59, Records of the Department of State, Policy Planning Staff Files 1944-47: Lot 64 D 563, Box
11. The Policy Planning Staff minutes for May 3 state: "There was a discussion of the Planning Staff
Memorandum of April 30, 1948 on the inauguration of organized political warfare. This paper was generally
approved and Mr. Kennan will present it tomorrow for discussion at a meeting of NSC consultants." (Ibid., Box
32)

The Problem

The inauguration of organized political warfare.

Analysis

1. Political warfare is the logical application of Clausewitz's doctrine in time of peace. In broadest definition,
political warfare is the employment of all the means at a nation's command, short of war, to achieve its national
objectives. Such operations are both overt and covert. They range from such overt actions as political alliances, economic measures (as ERP--the Marshall Plan), and "white" propaganda to such covert operations as clandestine support of "friendly" foreign elements, "black" psychological warfare and even encouragement of underground resistance in hostile states.

2. The creation, success, and survival of the British Empire has been due in part to the British understanding and application of the principles of political warfare. Lenin so synthesized the teachings of Marx and Clausewitz that the Kremlin's conduct of political warfare has become the most refined and effective of any in history. We have been handicapped however by a popular attachment to the concept of a basic difference between peace and war, by a tendency to view war as a sort of sporting context outside of all political context, by a national tendency to seek for a political cure-all, and by a reluctance to recognize the realities of international relations--the perpetual rhythm of struggle, in and out of war.

3. This Government has, of course, in part consciously and in part unconsciously, been conducting political
warfare. Aggressive Soviet political warfare has driven us overtly first to the Truman Doctrine, next to ERP, then to sponsorship of Western Union [1-1/2 lines of source text not declassified]. This was all political warfare
and should be recognized as such.

4. Understanding the concept of political warfare, we should also recognize that there are two major types of
political warfare--one overt and the other covert. Both, from their basic nature, should be directed and
coordinated by the Department of State. Overt operations are, of course, the traditional policy activities of any
foreign office enjoying positive leadership, whether or not they are recognized as political warfare. Covert
operations are traditional in many European chancelleries but are relatively unfamiliar to this Government.

5. Having assumed greater international responsibilities than ever before in our history and having been engaged by the full might of the Kremlin's political warfare, we cannot afford to leave unmobilized our resources for covert political warfare. We cannot afford in the future, in perhaps more serious political crises, to scramble into impromptu covert operations [1 line of source text not declassified].

6. It was with all of the foregoing in mind that the Policy Planning Staff began some three months ago/2/ a
consideration of specific projects in the field of covert operations, where they should be fitted into the structure
of this Government, and how the Department of State should exercise direction and coordination.

/2/Although the following page of the source text indicates that 3 lines were missing from the bottom of the
previous page, a comparison with the April 30 version of the memorandum cited in the source note above finds that no words were missing.

7. There are listed below projects which have been or are now being suggested by the Staff:

a. Liberation Committees.

Purpose: To encourage the formation of a public American organization which will sponsor selected political
refugee committees so that they may (a) act as foci of national hope and revive a sense of purpose among
political refugees from the Soviet World; (b) provide an inspiration for continuing popular resistance within the
countries of the Soviet World; and (c) serve as a potential nucleus for all-out liberation movements in the event
of war.

Description: This is primarily an overt operation which, however, should receive covert guidance and possibly
assistance from the Government. It is proposed that trusted private American citizens be encouraged to establish a public committee which would give support and guidance in U.S. interests to national movements (many of them now in existence) publicly led by outstanding political refugees from the Soviet World, such as Mikolajczyk and Nagy [of Poland and Hungary, respectively]. The American Committee should be so selected and organized as to cooperate closely with this Government. The functions of the American Committee should be limited to enabling selected refugee leaders [to keep alive as public figures with access to printing presses and microphones. It should not engage in underground activities.]/3/

/3/The words in brackets were taken from the April 30 version; see footnote 1 above.

What is proposed here is an operation in the traditional American form: organized public support of resistance to tyranny in foreign countries. Throughout our history, private American citizens have banded together to champion the cause of freedom for people suffering under oppression. (The Communists and Zionists have exploited this tradition to the extreme, to their own ends and to our national detriment, as witness the Abraham Lincoln brigade during the Spanish Civil War and the current illegal Zionist activities.) Our proposal is that this tradition be revived specifically to further American national interests in the present crisis.

[1 heading and 2 paragraphs (21-1/2 lines of source text) not declassified]

c. Support of Indigenous Anti-Communist Elements in Threatened Countries of the Free World.

Purpose: To strengthen indigenous forces combating communism in countries where Soviet political warfare is a threat to our national security.

Description: This is a covert operation again utilizing private intermediaries. To insure cover, the private
American organizations conducting the operation should be separate from the organizations mentioned in
previous projects. [3 lines of source text not declassified] This project is a matter of urgency because the
communists are reported to be planning the disruption of ERP through labor disturbances in France. [2 lines of
source text not declassified]

d. Preventive Direct Action in Free Countries.

Purpose: Only in cases of critical necessity, to resort to direct action to prevent vital installations, other material, or personnel from being (1) sabotaged or liquidated or (2) captured intact by Kremlin agents or agencies.

Description: This covert operation involves, for example, (1) control over anti-sabotage activities in the
Venezuelan oil fields, (2) American sabotage of Near Eastern oil installations on the verge of Soviet capture, and (3) designation of key individuals threatened by the Kremlin who should be protected or removed elsewhere.

8. It would seem that the time is now fully ripe for the creation of a covert political warfare operations directorate within the Government. If we are to engage in such operations, they must be under unified direction. One man must be boss. And he must, as those responsible for the overt phases of political warfare, be answerable to the Secretary of State, who directs the whole in coordination.

9. [6-1/2 lines of source text not declassified]

10. The National Security Council Secretariat would seem to provide the best possible cover for such a
directorate. Such cover would also permit a direct chain of command from the Secretary of State and be a
natural meeting ground for close collaboration with the military establishment.

Recommendations 
11. There should promptly be established, under the cover of the National Security Council Secretariat, a
directorate of political warfare operations to be known as the Consultative (or Evaluation) Board of the National Security Council.

12. The Director should be designated by the Secretary of State and should be responsible to him.

13. The Director should have initially a staff of 4 officers designated by the Department of State and 4 officers
designated by the Secretary of National Defense.

14. The Board should have complete authority over covert political warfare operations conducted by this
Government. It should have the authority to initiate new operations and to bring under its control or abolish
existing covert political warfare activities.

15. Specifically, (a) the four projects mentioned in paragraph 7 above should be activated by the Board and (b) covert political warfare now under CIA and theater commanders abroad should be brought under the authority of the Board.

16. The coordination of the above covert operations with the overt conduct of foreign policy should, of course,
be accomplished through the offices of the Secretary and Under Secretary of State. 

This short article front The Independent should give some hope to psychological operations professionals and unconventional warfare strategists.   There is growing resistance potential.

David Kang of the Korean Studies Institute at the University of Southern California, told Channel 4: “It’s these DVDs and USBs being smuggled in. Information and knowledge of the outside world is beginning to widen out. That means central control is breaking down.”

Recall that we define regime collapse when there is no longer central governing effectiveness combined with the loss of coherency of the military and security services.

I recently attended an off the record conference (ROE is we can discuss the ideas but not for attribution).  We discussed the concept of "byungjin" which is the regime's policy of simultaneous pursuit of nuclear weapons and economic development (e.g., Guns AND Butter).  One of the comments by one of the speakers was that the economic development is leading to a rise of the "princelings" or "outer elite" in Pyongyang.  They are starting to gain economically.  As we know from studying Ted Gurr and Why Men Rebel, those that are starving and only trying to survive have no motivation to seek political change.  However, those with food in their bellies who see the potential for more and a better life are the ones who may be motivated to seek political change.  We have long focused on the 2d tier leadership as key to influence in any post regime scenario but now with the rise of this nascent "princeling" or "outer elite" class we should be focusing on that we well.  The anecdotes in this article indicate the psychological operations potential.

The irony is that from among the emerging outer elite who are benefiting from "byungjin" and its economic development could arise potential resistance leaders who could begin the long hard task of developing resistance among the population.  However, it will not be able to be established, let along grow until there is further breakdown in the military and security services.  But that could be coming.

This of course all bears watching because we do not know what will happen or when.

A digital escape from North Korea's secret state: Kim Jong-un faces threat from undercover films posted on the web

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/a-digital-escape-from-north-koreas-secret-state-kim-jongun-faces-threat-from-undercover-films-posted-on-the-web-8931494.html?printService=print

Kim Jong-un has almost total control over what North Koreans see of the world. But he is fighting against a digital revolution, in which pop culture, not guns, might bring down his totalitarian regime

James Jones

Sunday, 10 November 2013

Eight-year-old Min staggers forwards, unsteady on his feet from hunger and exhaustion, wearing a shabby, blue overcoat discarded by an adult twice his size, and tells the hidden camera: “My mum tried to look after me but it got too hard so she told me I have to go, so I left and now I live outside.”

Min is among dozens of homeless street kids who gather around North Korean markets begging for money and looking for scraps of food. Their lives are featured in undercover footage to be screened this week in a Channel 4 documentary.

A network of ordinary North Koreans have been filming secretly inside the country and smuggling the footage out across the border with China. The footage gives a rare insight into the most isolated nation on earth, revealing the reality of everyday life in North Korea and showing the first signs of cracks in the regime’s control.

The network is run by Japanese journalist, Jiro Ishimaru, who has been training undercover reporters for 15 years.

“In North Korea, even filming everyday life is considered a form of political treason. If they are caught they’d be locked up and may never be let out again,” he said.

Unseen footage filmed by Mr Ishimaru’s reporters earlier this year shows Kim Jong-un’s speeches being pumped from speakers on street corners. One speech, promising his people a bright, economic future, had been on a continuous loop for three months. The footage shows whole villages rounded up to build monuments to the new Supreme Leader.

Even making a joke at the expense of the Supreme Leader can lead to life in a political prison camp. Satellite imagery shows that since Kim Jong-un came to power two years ago the political prison camps have grown. Today it’s estimated that almost one in 100 North Koreans is a political prisoner.

One former political prisoner who features in the documentary to be screened on Thursday is now leading the opposition to Kim Jong-un by revealing the reality of the outside world to North Koreans.

Mr Chung was caught crossing the border with China while doing business illegally in April 2000 and accused of being a spy. He spent three years in North Korea’s most notorious political prison camp, Yodok, where he was beaten, tortured and starved.

“Before I got arrested I weighed 75kg,” he said. “After 10 months I had a physical examination. When I looked at what I weighed I was 36kg. I couldn’t endure it anymore.”

After serving three years of his sentence Mr Chung was released when the authorities decided he wasn’t a spy after all. Soon after, he illegally crossed the border again, but this time he escaped for good. He now lives in Seoul, South Korea’s capital, and works with other defectors plotting against the regime. He realises that the best way to break the spell of North Korean propaganda is by exposing the people to popular culture.

Mr Chung smuggles radios, USB sticks and DVDs of soap operas and entertainment shows into the North, posing as a mushroom importer.

“The men prefer watching action films,” he said. “Men love their action films! I sent them Skyfall recently. The women enjoy watching soap operas and dramas. The more people are exposed to such media the more likely they are to become disillusioned with the regime and start wanting to live differently.”

In September he filmed himself secretly travelling to the China-North Korea border, the same spot where he was caught and branded a spy 13 years ago.

Since Kim Jong Un came to power border control has become much tighter. He realises that his power depends on maintaining a tight grip on information flows across the border and stopping people like Mr Chung. Border guards have a shoot-to-kill policy. Being caught with illegal DVDs could mean immediate imprisonment, but it’s now estiamted that half of North Koreans have watched foreign television.

David Kang of the Korean Studies Institute at the University of Southern California, told Channel 4: “It’s these DVDs and USBs being smuggled in. Information and knowledge of the outside world is beginning to widen out. That means central control is breaking down.”

In interviews with more than a dozen recent defectors a picture emerged of a rapidly changing society. Each has a story of the moment they saw the outside world in foreign films and television shows: the cars, the tall buildings, the abundance of food and the apparent freedom all caused the scales to fall from their eyes.

Far from regarding their South Korean cousins as American puppets and slaves, as portrayed in North Korean propaganda, they see they speak the same language but live in a country that is decades ahead in technology and prosperity.

(Continued at the link below)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/a-digital-escape-from-north-koreas-secret-state-kim-jongun-faces-threat-from-undercover-films-posted-on-the-web-8931494.html?printService=print

Something to consider from a psychological warfare/psychological operations, propaganda perspective.  Some good words from Crispin Burke.

V/R

Dave

Useful Idiots: How a Facebook Campaign Became Propaganda For Bashar Assad

Posted on 13 Sep 2013 by Starbuck

http://wingsoveriraq.com/2013/09/13/useful-idiots-how-a-facebook-campaign-became-propaganda-for-bashar-assad/

Syria is a proverbial Gordian Knot; the two-year old conflict is a vexing web of proxy armies, tenuous allies, and a myriad of factions with competing goals.

But just as the real conflict has been a lightning rod for all manner of hidden agendas, so has the domestic debate been here in the United States.  According to polls, the country remains deeply divided over the prospect of air and missile strikes on Syria.

Of course, war is the most serious undertaking of any state, and should only be embarked upon after great deliberation.  After all, debate is healthy in a democracy.

Still, partisan rancor often trumps careful analysis.  Nowhere was this more true than on the 43,000-strong Facebook page for the “Armed Forces Tea Party“, in which purported service members–in full uniform–masked their faces with signs protesting involvement in Syria.

Not only was this an egregious transgression in civil-military relations (Psst, here’s somegreat reading), but the campaign played directly into the Assad regime’s propaganda, as hackers from the Syrian Electronic Army defaced the US Marine Corps’ website with the aforementioned images, urging the United States not to interfere in Syria.

For decades, the Communist Party wooed influential Westerners into showing sympathy for their causes.  Dozens of authors, actors, and celebrities have, intentionally or not, lent legitimacy to all manner of dictators.  Such activity isn’t limited to the Cold War, either, as we’ve recently seen with basketball star Dennis Rodman’s overtures towards North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un, whom  he refers to as “my friend”.

During the Cold War, misguided elites were referred to as “useful idiots“; and whether through vanity or naiveté, they advanced the interests of some very unsavory characters.

(Continued at the link below)

http://wingsoveriraq.com/2013/09/13/useful-idiots-how-a-facebook-campaign-became-propaganda-for-bashar-assad/

CHENG: Winning a war without fighting

We would do well to pay attention to my good friend Dean Cheng.  Also at this link is an expanded piece from Dean from last year that goes into more detail on the "Three Warfares" below today's article.  http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/11/winning-without-fighting-chinese-public-opinion-warfare-and-the-need-for-a-robust-american-response

We should not only gain a better understanding of China from this, there are also lessons we could learn as well.

V/R

Dave

CHENG: Winning a war without fighting

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jul/17/cheng-winning-a-war-without-fighting/

By Dean Cheng

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

ANALYSIS/OPINION

The ultimate proof of generalship, Sun-Tzu observed nearly two millennia ago, is the ability to defeat an opponent without fighting. How did one go about convincing opponents that their cause was hopeless and that they were doomed to defeat, in an era before nuclear weapons?

By striking at the psychological will of opponents to resist — whether by displays of overwhelming might, undermining of their home fronts, or luring them into disadvantageous ground.

Fast-forward to the 21st century, and we find that the People's Republic of China has updated Sun-Tzu’s playbook. The People’s Liberation Army has issued regulations regarding “political warfare” to be conducted by the General Political Department — one of the four general departments that manage the army. These regulations highlight the “three warfares”: legal warfare, public opinion warfare, and psychological warfare, reflecting modern ways of ensnaring and defeating opponents without having to engage in combat.

Legal warfare, or lawfare, involves the use of national and international law to constrain and restrict an opponent’s ability to wage war. Whether it is raising doubts about whether one could legally fire missiles at Mullah Mohammed Omar’s convoy or debating the legality of drone warfare, it is clear that the courts are another battlefield in modern warfare.

Meanwhile, in the struggle to mold perceptions worldwide, China has established a global 24/7 news presence through such state-owned media outlets as the Xinhua News Agency and China Central Television. Both of these support the broader effort to influence military and civilian decision-makers, the ultimate focus of psychological warfare.

Too often, we associate psychological warfare with tactical actions, e.g., leaflets and loudspeakers. Indeed, elements in the U.S. military now prefer the term “military information support operations” over “psychological warfare.”

(Continued at the link below)

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jul/17/cheng-winning-a-war-without-fighting/

The Market Shall Set North Korea Free

Some important insights and commentary.  I wish we could remind all pundits and those who think that we can negotiate with the Kim Family Regime based on international norms and standards to always remember these three key points:

All of us at the United Front Department — also known as “the window into and out of North Korea” — learned three tenets of diplomacy by heart: 1. Pay no attention to South Korea. 2. Exploit Japan’s emotions. 3. Ply the United States with lies, but make sure they are logical ones. 

Kim Jong-il stressed the importance of these three tenets as the framework within which we were required to implement his vision for Pyongyang’s foreign relations. North Korea’s dealings with South Korea, Japan and the United States always hewed closely to these principles.

V/R

Dave

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

The Market Shall Set North Korea Free

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/27/opinion/global/The-Market-Shall-Set-North-Korea-Free.html?ref=global&pagewanted=all

Sung Choi

By JANG JIN-SUNG

Published: April 26, 2013

I DEFECTED from North Korea in 2004. I decided to risk my life to leave my home country — where I worked as a psychological warfare officer for the government — when it finally sunk in that there are two North Koreas: one real and the other a fiction created by the regime.

Although in my job I had access to foreign media, books with passages containing criticism of our Dear Leader Kim Jong-il or his revered father, Kim Il-sung, had large sections blacked out. One day, out of deep curiosity, I made up an excuse to stay behind at work to decipher the redacted words of a history book.

I locked the office door and put the pages against a window. Light from outside made the words under the ink perfectly clear. I read voraciously. I stayed late at work again and again to learn my country’s real history — or at least another view of it.

Most shocking was what I discovered about the Korean War. We had been taught all of our lives how an invasion by the South had triggered the conflict. Yet now I was reading that not only South Korea but the rest of the world believed the North had started the war. Who was right?

It was after my harrowing defection — in which I bribed my way to a border crossing and escaped by running across a frozen river to China — that I recognized the existence of a third North Korea: a theoretical one. This is the North Korea constructed by the outside world, a piecemeal analysis of the regime and its propaganda that misses the political and economic realities of the country.

All of us at the United Front Department — also known as “the window into and out of North Korea” — learned three tenets of diplomacy by heart: 1. Pay no attention to South Korea. 2. Exploit Japan’s emotions. 3. Ply the United States with lies, but make sure they are logical ones.

Kim Jong-il stressed the importance of these three tenets as the framework within which we were required to implement his vision for Pyongyang’s foreign relations. North Korea’s dealings with South Korea, Japan and the United States always hewed closely to these principles.

Our department’s mission was to deceive our people and the world, doing what was necessary to keep our leader in power. We openly referred to talks with South Korea as “aid farming,” because while Seoul sought dialogue through its so-called Sunshine Policy, we saw it as an opening not for diplomatic progress but for extracting as much aid as possible. We also successfully bought time for our nuclear program through the endless marathon of the six-party talks.

(Continued at the link below)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/27/opinion/global/The-Market-Shall-Set-North-Korea-Free.html?ref=global&pagewanted=all

NKOREA CRITICIZES SKOREAN BORDER XMAS TOWER

We can chuckle about a Christmas tree's effect on north Korea but we should also realize that from a PSYOP/MISO perspective that this is in indication both of how seriously the regime takes psychological warfare and how much it fears it when its people are exposed to outside information.  This is one more reason why we need the ROK/US alliance to conduct comprehensive psychological operations – both overtly and covertly.

V/R

Dave

NKOREA CRITICIZES SKOREAN BORDER XMAS TOWER

Dec. 24 5:00 AM EST

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/nkorea-criticizes-skorean-border-xmas-tower

Home » Seoul » NKorea criticizes SKorean border Xmas tower

A 30-meter-tall (100-foot-tall) steel Christmas tree with about 30,000 light bulbs, is lit by Christian groups at the western mountain peak, known as Aegibong, in Gimpo, South Korea, Saturday, Dec. 22, 2012. The Christmas tree would be visible by North Koreans living near the Demilitarized Zone that divided the two Koreas. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea is accusing rival South Korea of using an illuminated frontline Christmas tower to engage in psychological warfare.

North Korean state media said Monday the lighting of the Christmas-tree-shaped tower is because Seoul was humiliated by Pyongyang successfully putting a satellite into orbit Dec. 12.

The United Nations and others call the launch a cover for a banned test of ballistic missile technology.

(Continued at the link below)

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/nkorea-criticizes-skorean-border-xmas-tower

Kim Jong-eun should fear Sunshine

There is of course the theory that a fully executed Sunshine Policy could unhinge the regime because so much aid and more importantly information would get into the north and it would undercut regime legitimacy and thus lead to collapse.  Under such a theory the end state would be regime collapse and unification of the peninsula.  Unfortunately the Sunshine Policy is based on the flawed assumption that aid to and engagement with the north  will lead to a change in regime behavior.  We should know after the 12/12/12 missile launch that the regime has no intention to (nor can it) change its behavior.  

In addition, it would be quite a policy shift by the ROK and the US to actively attempt to undermine the regime to cause it to collapse.  Ironically no one in the region really wants that to happen because 1) it could lead to war and 2) the financial and economic (and not to mention the humanitarian) burden will be so great as to overwhelm the ROK and others potentially destabilize the region.  So while it is in everyone's interest to maintain the status quo we face the moral dilemma of 22, 995,000 people living in a virtual prison suffering on a scale that has little rival in history.

But I would offer this strategic assumption: There will be no change on the Korean peninsula as long as the Kim Family Regime exists.

V/R

Dave

COMMENT Kim Jong-eun should fear Sunshine By Andrei Lankov  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/NL15Dg01.html Whatever policy towards North Korea will be chosen by the new South Korean government following the December 19 presidential election, it seems clear that it will be significantly softer than that followed by the Lee Myung-bak administration.  Right now it appears that Park Geun-hye, the candidate of the moderate right, has better chance of winning, but it is unlikely that she will continue with the hardline policy of her predecessor.  This looming dovish turn is likely to annoy some people on the political right in South Korea. They often vilify aid to, and cooperation with North Korea as "appeasement", and they point to the obvious lack of reciprocity in North-South relations. It is stated that the money earned by Pyongyang through exchanges with the South is used to strengthen North Korean leader Kim Jong-eun's rule.  These accusations have within them a kernel of truth. In few, if any, cases have interactions between North and South Korea been equal. Much of these interactions are officially termed "economic exchanges", but in most cases they are heavily subsidized by the South Korean government. To be blunt, without direct or indirect subsidies neither the Kaesong industrial complex, nor the now defunct Keumgang and Kaesong city tours would be viable economically.  It is also true that the North Korean government takes the lion's share of all the "profits" from such "economic cooperation" projects, then re-distributing this income as it sees fit. It is indeed likely that many secret police in North Korea have been paid indirectly by the South Korean taxpayers.  However, things are not so simple as all that. Economic exchanges do not merely fill the coffers of the regime, but also introduce dangerous knowledge about the outside world to North Koreans who are involved.  A North Korean seamstress in a Kaesong textiles factory has a South Korean manager to whom she has to talk every day. When the Kaesong city tours were in operation, the entire city of Kaesong could see busloads of South Koreans whose behaviour and dress clearly demonstrated that they were not merely the enslaved, downtrodden pawns of US imperialism. The same can be said about virtually any interaction between North and South Koreans.  (Continued at the link below) http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/NL15Dg01.html