Insight: May 7

On Tuesday Jenny Brockie hosts a Live episode of Insight with experts and defectors discussing whether North Korea is a credible threat or not.

It’s a nation as much feared as jeered. In the aftermath of recent posturing and fist shaking from Kim Jong-un, experts around the world are scratching their heads trying to figure out whether North Korea is a real threat, or if it’s just a lot of hot air.

Even the world’s best analysts admit they’re mostly guessing when it comes to working out North Korea’s motives and nuclear capabilities. And the price of a miscalculation is high.

In this live episode, Insight brings together some of the world’s best brains to try to piece together what’s unfolding in the secretive state and debate different ideas about the best way to deal with Jong-un. They’re joined in the studio North Korean defectors who describe first-hand what life was like there.

Guests include:

Andrew Lee grew up in North Korea. From a young age, he was taught that the United States was evil and that South Korea was full of beggars. When he was 12, Andrew was left on his own when his father defected to South Korea and his mother went missing. Years later he reunited with his father and now lives in Seoul.

Sue Mi Terry is a North Korea and East Asia specialist. She was a Senior Analyst with the CIA’s Directorate of Intelligence from 2001 to 2008. She describes herself as hardline and says it’s time for South Korea and the United States to stop showing restraint. Sue’s Korean family were divided when the North and South separated in the 1950s.

Andrei Lankov is a History professor at Kookmin University in Seoul and is the author of “The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia.” He has also written for The Guardian and The New York Times. Andrei says North Korea is just engaging in another round of bellicose rhetoric to remind the world it exists.

Rory Medcalf says it’s almost impossible for anyone outside North Korea to know what’s really happening there. He believes the risk of nuclear war by North Korea is small but can’t be ignored. Rory is the Director of the International Security Program at the Lowy Institute. He was also a Senior Analyst with Australia’s Office of National Assessments.

Tuesday at 8.30pm on SBS ONE.

David Knox blogs Eurovision for SBS