"By Chico Harlan Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, December 20, 2010 SEOUL - Hoping to better predict when North Korea might collapse, South Korea is spending $1.6 million to come up with a formula that measures the stability of the world's hardest-to-measure country.
The formula will take into account political loyalty in the military, recent economic output, even the ups and downs of leader Kim Jong Il's health - all despite a lack of verifiable information on any of those factors.
"The major problem with this is the lack of data," said a senior government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the project, known as the North Korea Situation Index, is underway.
When the Unification Ministry finalizes the index within the next month or so, its assessment - probably expressed as a single number, the official said - will represent an attempt to introduce some certitude into the increasingly polarized debate about the North's life expectancy.
Predicting the date of the reclusive state's demise has long been a favorite parlor game among policymakers in Seoul and Washington, but a year of significant developments - with North Korea unleashing several military provocations, drawing closer to China and all but formalizing a hereditary power transfer - has somehow bolstered two opposing views. Where some see evidence of a nation in disarray, others see a nation stronger than it has been in years.
"Unification is drawing nearer," South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said last week of the state of affairs...."
