South Korea offers North korean defectors $860,000 in cash rewards for sensitive information about Kim Jong-un regime. An expanded $10 billion program of rewards could buy chaos, mass defections and breakdown of the North Korean nuclear and missile programs and pressure the North Korean leadership.
There was also a $25 million bounty for Bin Laden.
The South Korean rewards would go to “people who provide intelligence and knowledge that can enhance South Korea’s security”, the Yonhap news agency reported.
Vastly expanding this program and adding financial support from the USA could be a relatively super cheap solution to the problems in North Korea. The amount of rewards for each significant action should be increased and the range of actions that receive rewards should be increased. The new rewards should target more areas of North Koreas nuclear program, missile program and leadership command and control structure.
The current program pays rewards on the basis of the importance of the intelligence, Yonhap said. Other amounts would be given to soldiers who defected with weapons. The current cash incentive is aimed at encouraging more members of the north’s elite to flee to the south, it added. “One of the biggest reasons why North Koreans are hesitant about defecting is because they are fearful of [how they would make a living] after they come to South Korea,” Yonhap cited a ministry official as saying.
High-profile defectors have served as a vital source of intelligence about the Pyongyang government over the years.
A second Korean war could cost millions of lives and trillions of dollars.
Kim Jong Un is paranoid and has purged relatives and other high level officials.
South Korea has $378 billion in currency reserves.
The USA has $120 billion in foreign currency reserves but the US dollar is the world reserve currency.
Kim Jong Un and his regime have a list of crimes in a UN dossier that is over 372 pages long.
An expanded program of cash rewards could be used to break the North Korea nuclear program and Kim Jong Un’s grip on the country.
Rewards for
* Kim Jong Un and key officials brought to justice dead or alive (Having rewards in the tens of millions of dollar range or even up to ten billion to pay for an entire division to turn against the regime would be cheaper than a war)
* Rewards for key nuclear and missile scientists
* Increase rewards for defecting with jets to $10-30 million
* More targeted rewards for key actions against nuclear bases
Big rewards would likely further the paranoia in North Korea and could be used to bog down the nuclear and missile program.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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