The Perfect Soldier: Special Operations, Commandos, and the Future of Us Warfare by James F. Dunnigan
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The Samsung Factor
by James Dunnigan
July 23, 2013
If the North Korea didn’t have enough problems with morale, it has a growing problem with the success of Samsung smart phones. Koreans on both sides of the DMZ take great pride in the success of Samsung, which beat Apple at their own game and became the largest selling smart phone brand. But Samsung will not ship smart phones to North Korea and the North Korean government is hostile to South Korean products in general. Getting caught with a Galaxy phone in the north will get you arrested. That said, the Galaxy phones are a hot item on the North Korean black market. Even if you can’t use them in public, having one is a big deal, even for government officials. A guilty pleasure, so to speak, and a perfect symbol of the differences between the north and south. Earlier in the year, a joke going around the south postulated that the recent northern bad behavior was really all about the success of Samsung phones, and not the economic sanctions.
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