Postwar East Asia has seen astonishing economic dynamism in Japan, South Korea, China, and Taiwan as well as a transformation of authoritarian regimes into vibrant democracies in South Korea and Taiwan. Neither of these trends has taken hold in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), which remains the worst kind of historical anachronism: a hereditary monarchy with the modern trappings of totalitarianism and a centrally mismanaged economy. Insecure both internally and externally, and ruthless in its pursuit of regime survival, the DPRK government has spawned two crises. The first...