One of the many ongoing debates among North Korea experts is whether or not beefed up sanctions would succeed in incentivizing the North Korean regime to behave in ways that the international community deems appropriate. Although this debate will most likely continue for the foreseeable future, at least for now, there is some evidence to suggest that the North Korean regime may be feeling the pressure of the sanctions; and there is no better evidence than the North Korean regime itself.

For example, despite promising that he would make sure that the North Korean people would never have to tighten their belts again when he first came to power, Kim Jong Un, who weighs nearly 300 pounds, has told his subjects to prepare themselves for another Arduous March – bringing back terrifying and painful memories from the worst days of that country’s famine in the 1990s when it was estimated that millions died of starvation. Though it is true that the North Korean government has declared that its economy could withstand any sanction, it has also compared the sanctions to a “Leningrad-style siege.”