Benjamin R. Young

Beyond Nukes: Inside North Korea’s Hidden Global Power YouTube video by Dr Lokman Karadag

🎙️ This week, in my interview series on IR, I’ll be joined by Dr. Benjamin R. Young (@dubstepindprk.bsky.social) as we bring North Korea to the table for discussion.

Subscribe to my YouTube channel and click the notification bell to get alerts when we go live.

www.youtube.com/live/7vlNIo-...

Very preliminary look at my next book cover. Entitled “Reds, Revolutions and Rebellions: How China, Cuba, and Vietnam Transformed Guerilla Warfare,” it is scheduled to come out in summer 2026 with Cornell University Press.

Famous Putinist sycophant Russian Singer, Shaman, meeting Kim Jong Un after his recent concert in North Korea. This renewed Russo-DPRK alliance is going to outlive the end of the Ukraine war. Military, diplomatic, and socio-cultural channels have all been strengthened.

I bet even the North Koreans hate him…

And even your Cuba analysis is spot on. David Kang, Korea AND Cuba expert.

I contributed a review to this roundtable. It’s a Good book, with some problems.

My latest publication. A review of a new book on North Korea- Africa relations.

Kim Jong Un is going to Beijing and sees himself as an equal international leader to both Putin and Xi. Despite North Korea’s small geographic size and isolation from the Western order, Pyongyang has always had an inferiority complex and sees its as a global player in international affairs

Now, North Korea will really NEVER give up nukes. Let’s stop this CVID cosplay and accept North Korea as a nuclear state because that’s what it is, whether we like it or not.

Unpopular opinion: we have learned to live with a nuclear-armed North Korea. We can learn to live with a nuclear Iran. Sure, it's not great but war is far worse.

The amount of really smart DC think tank types who are okay with another forever war in the Middle East absolutely baffle me. Because Iraq and Afghanistan worked out so well!? Now, let's go to war with a country of 92 million and has a rich proud history. Crazy people.

For those that know my professional journey, getting a tenure track position in a desirable location close to family not been easy for me so I’m really excited about this.

It’s finally official so I’m happy to say that I will be starting in a tenure-track Assistant Professor position at Fayetteville State University this Fall. I’m excited to be moving to North Carolina, being closer to my family there, and also teaching at an HBCU w/ a rich history.

Well, Kristi Noem made up that she met Kim Jong Un so the North Korea reference might not make much sense to dog killer lady.

Bart van Genugten: How Western tourists put North Koreans’ lives at risk YouTuber recounts his participation in the recent Pyongyang marathon and the ethics of creating content in the DPRK

Even this guy admits the visitors were obnoxious and irresponsible.

www.nknews.org/category/nor...

I’d close my borders too if I had to deal with that obnoxiousness.

My theory is that North Korea re-closed their border to western tourists because the first batch for the marathon was a bunch of obnoxious YouTube influencers who put their cameras in everyone’s faces & likely endangered the safety of their tour guides on a near constant basis.

It’s more like an internship, I guess.

Muhoozi, son of Ugandan dictator Museveni, is one of the few people in this world to have attended military education courses in both North Korea and the U.S.

Yong Suk is a wonderful person. You should get in touch with him!

Putin and Kim Hate the West—and Mistrust Beijing The Russian nationalist philosopher Alexander Dugin wrote an essay last June calling for his countrymen to adopt North Korea’s ideology of juche.

My latest piece:

www.compactmag.com/article/puti...

According to Foucault, (inserts impenetrable garbage academic jargon).

I guess.

Суд в Москве рассмотрит протоколы на учёного Ланькова и критика Гаврилова Всего известно о пяти протоколах

It seems that the Russian government has now indicted North Korea scholar, Andrei Lankov, for working with an “undesirable organization.” Good thing he lives in South Korea now. So Orwellian but so predictable from the Kremlin.

www.svoboda.org/a/sud-v-mosk...

My mother is currently battling brain cancer too. It’s an awful disease. Amidst all the political divisions and chaos, this moment last night was uniquely uplifting and human.

“Even They Might Rise”: The Islamic Republic of Iran’s Solidarity with African Americans | The Journal of African American History: Vol 109, No 4 Abstract During the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, Ayatollah Khomeini decided to release the African American hostages first as a demonstration of solidarity with the world’s oppressed peoples. Revolutiona...

My most recent publication:

“Even They Might Rise”: The Islamic Republic of Iran’s Solidarity with African Americans | The Journal of African American History: Vol 109, No 4

www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

I’m going with American Juche.

I know this is contrarian and likely annoying. Also, JDV probably should be doing other things but it’s good to see a political figure intellectually joust and not just put up the same tired old platitudes on social media.

The Black Panthers and the Soviets The contemporaneous movements for human rights that Soviet rights defenders and the Black Panthers waged during the 1960s are analysed in a comparative fashion…

“The Black Panthers and the Soviets: A Comparative History of Human Rights Movements."
A fascinating forthcoming book by my former MA advisor, Meredith Roman.

www.bloomsbury.com/us/black-pan...

…. Wtf….