North Korea and Transitioning Myanmar in Comparative Perspective

North Korea and Myanmar both experienced core existential challenges early in their postcolonial history: the former via a challenger state in South Korea and its superpower ally the United States, the latter via multiple internal insurgencies. Both young states responded to these threats in an intensely militarized, authoritarian fashion. Their responses also eventually earned them pariah status, sanctioned respectively for their weapons programs and suppression of democracy. Myanmar, unlike North Korea, has been able to alleviate its security concerns with various battlefield victories and peace treaties in the 1990s and 2000s, and then turned to address the reasons for its pariah status. North Korea has been unable to find such a victory and thus is unlikely to escape its position as a sanctioned, isolated state.