Kim Jong Un in Supreme Kim Jong Un Profile Picture Funny
When N Korean state media reported in December 2011 that leader Kim Jong-il had died at the age of seventy of a heart attack from "overwork," I was a relatively new analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency. Everyone knew that Kim had heart issues—he had suffered a stroke in 2008—and that the 24-hour interval would probably come when his family unit's history of eye disease and his smoking, drinking, and partying would catch up with him. His father and founder of the country Kim Il-sung had also died of a middle attack in 1994. Nonetheless, the death was jarring.
While North Koreans wept, fainted, and convulsed with grief, feigned or not, Kim Jong-un, the twenty-something-year-sometime son of Kim Jong-il, reportedly closed the country's borders and declared a land of emergency. News of these events began to filter out to the international media through prison cell phones that had been smuggled in before Kim Jong-il's death.
There had been signs earlier 2011 that Kim was grooming his son for the succession: he began to accompany his begetter on publicized inspections of armed forces units, his nascency home was designated a historical site, and he began to assume leadership titles and roles in the military, political party, and security appliance, including as a four-star general in 2010.
In response to the expiry, South korea convened a National Security Council meeting equally the land put its military and civil defence force on high warning, Japan set up a crisis management squad, and the White House issued a statement proverb that it was "in close touch with our allies in S Korea and Japan." Back in Langley, I remember being watchful for any indications of instability, as I began to develop my thinking on what was happening and where Northward Korea might exist headed under the newly named leader. Immediately later Kim Jong-il'south death was announced, the North Korean land media made it clear that Jong-united nations was the successor: "At the forefront of our revolution, there is our comrade Kim Jong-united nations standing equally the great successor … "
What sort of person was Kim Jong-united nations? Would he even want the burden of being North korea's leader? And if so, how would he govern and comport foreign diplomacy? What would be his approach to the nuclear weapons program that he inherited? Would the elites accept Kim? Or would there exist instability, mass defections, a alluvion of refugees, bloody purges, a war machine coup?
Predictions most Kim'south imminent autumn, overthrow, or demise were rife amid Northward Korea and Asia watchers. Surely, someone in his mid-20s with no leadership experience would exist quickly overwhelmed and usurped past his elders. There was no way North Koreans would stand for a second dynastic succession, unheard of in communism, not to mention that his youth was a critical demerit in a society that prizes the wisdom that comes with historic period and maturity. And if Kim Jong-united nations were to concord onto his position, what would happen to his country? Northward Korea was poor and backward, isolated, unable to feed its people, while clinging to its nuclear and missile programs for legitimacy and prestige. Nether Kim Jong-united nations, the collapse of N Korea seemed more likely than ever.
That was then.
In the six years since, Kim has nerveless a number of honorifics, cementing his position as North korea's leader. Kim has carried out four of North korea's half dozen nuclear tests, including the biggest ane, in September 2017, with an estimated yield betwixt 100-150 kilotons (the diminutive flop dropped on Hiroshima, Japan during World War 2 was an estimated 15 kilotons). He has besides tested nearly 90 ballistic missiles, three times more than his father and grandad combined. Democratic people's republic of korea now has between 20 and 60 nuclear weapons and has demonstrated ICBMs that announced to be capable of hitting the continental U.s.a.. It could also be on track to have upward to 100 nuclear weapons and a variety of missiles—long-range, road-mobile, and submarine-launched—that could be operational as early as 2020. Nether Kim, North korea has conducted major cyberattacks and reportedly used a chemical nerve amanuensis to kill Kim's half-blood brother at an international airport.
The last half-dozen years have besides seen Kim dotting the North Korean mural with ski resorts, water parks, and high-end restaurants to showcase the land's modernity and prosperity to internal and external audiences. They are besides meant to deliver on his hope to amend the people'southward lives—as part of his byungjin policy of developing both the economy and nuclear weapons capabilities—and to attract foreign tourists.
Yet even as he is modernizing his land at a furious pace, Kim has deepened N Korea's isolation. Having rebuffed U.South., South Korean, and Chinese attempts to reengage, he has refused to run into with any foreign head of state, and and then far every bit is known, since becoming leader his significant foreign contacts accept been limited to Kenji Fujimoto, a Japanese sushi chef whom he knew in his youth and whom he invited to Pyongyang in 2012, and Dennis Rodman, an American basketball role player, who has visited Democratic people's republic of korea 5 times since 2013.
Kim Jong-un is here to stay.
Of Missiles and Men
The pace of weapons testing is speeding up. Kim Jong-un has already tested about iii times more missiles than his begetter and gramps combined.
A painting of the tardily North Korean leaders Kim Il-sung (L) and Kim Jong-il hints at the opaqueness of the Hermit Kingdom. Jason Lee/Reuters
The x-human foot-tall baby
North korea is what we at the CIA called "the hardest of the hard targets." A old CIA analyst once said that trying to sympathise North Korea is similar working on a "jigsaw puzzle when y'all have a mere scattering of pieces and your opponent is purposely throwing pieces from other puzzles into the box." The North Korean authorities's opaqueness, self-imposed isolation, robust counterintelligence practices, and culture of fear and paranoia provided at best bitty data.
Intelligence analysis is difficult, and not intuitive. The analyst has to exist comfortable with ambiguity and contradictions, constantly training her mind to question assumptions, consider alternative hypotheses and scenarios, and make the call in the absence of sufficient data, oft in loftier-stakes situations. To cultivate these habits of mind, we were required to take courses to improve our thinking. Walk into any current or former CIA analyst'southward office, and you volition find a slim, majestic volume by Richards Heuer with the title Psychology of Intelligence Analysis. This is required reading for CIA analysts. It was presented to u.s.a. during our initial educational activity as new CIA officers and often referred to in subsequent preparation. It still sits on my shelf at Brookings, within arm's reach. When I happen to glance at the purple book, I am reminded well-nigh how humility is inherent in intelligence analysis—particularly in studying a target like North Korea—since it forces me to confront my doubts, remind myself well-nigh how I know what I know and what I don't know, face up my confidence level in my assessments, and evaluate how those unknowns might change my perspective.
Heuer, who worked at the CIA for 45 years in both operations and analysis, focused his book on how intelligence analysts tin overcome, or at least recognize and manage, the weaknesses and biases in our thinking processes. Ane of his key points was that we tend to perceive what we expect to perceive, and that "patterns of expectations tell analysts, subconsciously, what to look for, what is important, and how to interpret what is seen." The analyst'due south established mindset predisposes her to call up in certain ways and affects the style she incorporates new information.
What, then, are the expectations and perceptions that nosotros need to overcome to form an accurate assessment of Kim Jong-un and his regime? Given the over-the-height rhetoric from North Korea'due south state media, Kim's own often outrageous statements, and the hyperbolic imagery and boastful platitudes perpetuated past the ubiquitous socialist realism art, information technology has been simply too piece of cake to reduce Kim to caricature. That is a mistake.
When the focus is on Kim's appearance, there'due south a tendency to portray him every bit a drawing figure, ridiculing his weight and youth. Kim has been chosen—and not just by our president—"Rocket Man," "short and fatty," "a crazy fat boy," and "Pyongyang's pig boy." A New Yorker cover from January xviii, 2016, presently after North Korea's 4th nuclear test, portrayed him as a chubby baby, playing with his "toys": nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and tanks. The imagery suggests that, like a child, he is prone to tantrums and erratic behavior, unable to make rational choices, and liable to get himself and others into trouble.
Still, when the focus is on the frighteningly rapid pace and advancement of Due north Korea'southward cyber, nuclear, and conventional capabilities, Kim is portrayed every bit a ten-human foot-tall giant with untold and unlimited power: unstoppable, undeterrable, omnipotent.
The coexistence of these two sets of overlapping perceptions—the ten-foot-alpine baby—has shaped our understanding and misunderstanding of Kim and North Korea. It simultaneously underestimates and overestimates Kim's capabilities, conflates his capabilities with his intentions, questions his rationality, or assumes his possession of a strategic purpose and the means to reach his goals. These assumptions distort and skew our policy discussions.
A adult female in Pyongyang walks past a billboard advertizement North Korea'southward missile prowess. The capital city is rife with stylized propaganda. David Guttenfelder/National Geographic Creative
Footsteps of Full general Kim
If he had followed Korean custom and tradition, Kim Jong-il would have named Kim Jong-nam, not Kim Jong-un, his successor, because Jong-nam was the eldest of his iii sons. But Kim Jong-il reportedly rejected Jong-nam as being unfit to lead North Korea. Why? For i, the elder Kim might accept judged that Jong-nam was tainted by foreign influence. In 2001 Jong-nam had been detained in Japan with a fake passport in a failed attempt to get to Tokyo Disneyland. More seriously, information technology is said that he had suggested that Democratic people's republic of korea undertake policy reform and open up up to the Due west, enraging his begetter.
The second son, Jong-chul, was accounted as well effeminate; one of Jong-chul's friends recalled that "[Jong–chul] is not the type of guy who would do something to harm others. He is a nice guy who could never be a villain." Indeed, he seems to be playing an unspecified supporting role in his younger brother'due south regime.
All in the family
Four generations of Kims: A selective history*
That left Jong-un, whom the elderberry Kim chose to be the third Kim to pb N Korea because he was the most ambitious of his children. Kenji Fujimoto, Kim Jong-il's former sushi chef, who visited Pyongyang at the asking of Kim Jong-un, has provided some of the nigh fascinating immediate observations virtually Jong-un and his human relationship with his father. Fujimoto claims that Jong-il had chosen his youngest son to succeed him as early every bit 1992, citing as testify the scene at Jong-united nations'south ninth birthday banquet where Jong-il instructed the band to play "Footsteps" and dedicated the vocal to his son: Tramp, tramp, tramp; The footsteps of our General Kim; Spreading the spirit of February [a reference to Kim Jong-il, who was born in February]; We, the people, march forward to a bright hereafter. Judging from the lyrics, Jong-il was expecting Kim Jong-un to lead Northward Korea into the hereafter, guided by the spirit and legacy of his father.
Though Jong-il saw in his son a worthy successor to the dynasty, in that location are critical differences between the first two Kims and Kim Jong-united nations. Kim Il-sung, the country'due south founder and Jong-un's grandfather who ruled for nearly five decades until his death in 1994, was a revolutionary hero who fought Japanese imperialism, the South Korean "puppets," and the American "jackals" in a military conflict that ended just because of an armistice.
In the side by side generation Kim Jong-il had to navigate through world-irresolute events that included the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent end of large-calibration assistance from Moscow, a irresolute relationship with the always-suspicious Chinese who seemed to be prioritizing links with Seoul, and tense negotiations with the United States on Democratic people's republic of korea's burgeoning nuclear program. And let's not forget the famine and the drought of the 1990s, or the tightening noose of sanctions and international ostracism.
In dissimilarity with his battle-hardened elders, Kim Jong-un grew up in a cocoon of indulgence and privilege.
During the 1990s famine, in which as many equally 2–iii million N Koreans died as a consequence of starvation and hunger-related illnesses, Kim was in Switzerland. His childhood was marked by luxury and leisure: vast estates with horses, swimming pools, bowling alleys, summers at the family'southward private resort, luxury vehicles adapted so that he could drive when he was seven years old. For Kim, skiing in the Swiss Alps and pond in the French Riviera must have seemed office of his birthright. Kim had a temper, hated to lose, and loved Hollywood movies and basketball player Michael Jordan.
Fujimoto, the sushi chef, has described Jong-united nations's mother as not very strict about educational activity and says that he was never forced to report. His friend and classmate in Switzerland said of Kim: "Nosotros weren't the dimmest kids in the class just neither were we the cleverest. We were always in the 2d tier … The teachers would meet him struggling ashamedly and then move on. They left him in peace." Jong-united nations was apparently unbothered past his less-than stellar scores; as his classmate noted, "He left without getting any examination results at all. He was much more interested in football and basketball than lessons."
Despite his credible lack of seriousness, Jong-un seems to have known from early on that, as his father'due south chosen successor, he was destined to lead. His strong self-esteem and confidence were cultivated starting time when he was very immature. And the Kim family dynasty—a totalitarian regime—carefully created a cult of personality around the young boy, as it had done with his father and gramps before him, reinforcing it through fearfulness and intimidation and shows of force. Kim's aunt said that at his eighth birthday political party, he wore a general's compatible with stars, and the real generals with real stars bowed to him and paid their respects to the boy. According to Fujimoto, Kim carried a Colt .45 pistol when he was eleven years quondam and dressed in miniature army uniforms.
As Mark Bowden wrote in a 2015 Vanity Fair contour, "At age v, we are all the center of the universe. Everything—our parents, family unit, home, neighborhood, schoolhouse, country—revolves around us. For nigh people, what follows is a long procedure of dethronement, equally His Majesty the Child confronts the ever more obvious and humbling truth. Not so for Kim. His earth at historic period 5 has turned out to be his earth at age 30 … Everyone does exist to serve him."
And then, while small armies of teachers, tutors, cooks, assigned playmates, bodyguards, relatives, and chauffeurs developed Kim'south sense of entitlement and shielded him from the realities of North Korea and the world beyond when he was a child, the concept of juche (self-reliance) and suryong (Supreme Leader) would provide the ideological and existential justification for his rule when it came time for him to presume the curtain of leadership. The regime's propaganda auto constructed and promoted the mythology, extolling his wisdom, his martial prowess, and his near supernatural capabilities, an example of which was his supposed ability to drive at age three.
In October 2006, when Kim Jong-un was in his early twenties and two months away from his graduation from Kim Il-Sung Military University (which he had reportedly attended since 2002), North Korea conducted its starting time nuclear exam, providing the Kim dynasty with yet some other layer of protection, farther steeping the nation in the Kim family unit mythology of supreme power, and further warping the young Jong-un's sense of reality and expectations. That nuclear examination, and his grandfather's and father'southward commitment to nuclear weapons, would also, even so, narrow his choices one time he took power, boxing him into the conviction that the fate of the nation and its 25 million people rested on his conveying forward this legacy. The young Kim and his classmates at the military university—the future military aristocracy—no doubt celebrated that nuclear milestone, which probably besides fortified their optimism nigh their state'south nuclear futurity and reinforced their conventionalities in their role as the defenders of that hereafter.
The Gulag Peninsula
An estimated 200,000 N Koreans are held in some thirty prison camps across the country.
Once Kim did get the leader, and every bit such the personification of North Korea'south national involvement, he was endowed with all the tools of political repression that had consolidated his male parent's and granddaddy'southward supremacy. These tools immune him to validate his persecution of any real or suspected dissenters, and to maintain a horrific network of prison camps in which torture, rape, beatings, and a variety of other human rights violations continue to take place to this day, as they accept washed for many decades. As the U.North. Committee of Research on Human being Rights in the Democratic People'southward Republic of Korea concluded in 2014, North Korea has committed "systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations," and under its banner of "Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism," the regime "seeks to dominate every aspect of its citizens' lives and terrorizes them from within."
A N Korean soldier in Pyongyang stands vigil in Kim Il-sung Foursquare. The markings on the street are for military parades—a hallmark of dictatorships the world over. David Guttenfelder/National Geographic Creative
A 21st–century dictatorship
As a scholar of U.South. history before I became an intelligence annotator, I couldn't help but think almost Andrew Carnegie'south famous statement about the third generation in America as Kim 3.0 took the reins of ability in North Korea. "In that location are just three generations from shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves." Or in other words, the first generation makes the money, the second generation maintains it, and the tertiary squanders it. Kim Jong-un seems adamant to avoid that fate.
Kim has adopted the mantle of the mythical, godlike leadership role that grandfather and country founder Kim Il-sung and his father Kim Jong-il held and keep to concord in their death. But he seems determined to chart his ain path. In curt, this is not your gramps's dictatorship.
Kim is notwithstanding harnessing the nostalgia for his granddaddy's era, before the 1990s famine and the plummet of the Soviet Marriage and the resulting termination of aid. With his uncanny likeness to his grandad in both appearance and demeanor, he has skillfully exploited the country'southward adulation of its founder. But a few months afterward he became the leader of North korea, on the 100th ceremony of his grandfather's nativity, Kim delivered his first public address. As he invoked his grandfather's legacy in the lengthy, 20-minute speech communication, he also affirmed his father's "military commencement" policy, proclaiming that "the days are gone forever when our enemies could blackmail u.s.a. with nuclear bombs." Yet fifty-fifty while endorsing his father'due south policy, he was making a remarkable departure from his male parent's practice, for this was the kickoff fourth dimension that North Koreans had heard their leader's phonation in a public oral communication since Kim Il-sung's days: Kim Jong-il shunned speaking in public during his almost 20 years of dominion.
While basking in the nostalgia for his grandad, Kim Jong-united nations is besides adamant to be seen as a "modern" leader of a "mod North korea." His charting of his own path tin exist seen in some other departure from his father'south public persona. Kim has allowed himself to seem more transparent and accessible than his begetter. He appears in public with his pretty and fashionable young wife, Ri Sol-ju (with whom he has at to the lowest degree one child, and possibly three). He hugs, holds hands, and links artillery with men, women, and children, seeming comfortable with both young and erstwhile. That transparency has been extended to the government. When ane of its satellite launches failed in April 2012, the authorities admitted the failure publicly, the first time it had e'er done and then.
During his frequent public appearances, Jong-un can be seen giving guidance at diverse economic, military, and social and cultural venues, every bit his father and grandad did, but he is also shown pulling weeds, riding roller coasters, navigating a tank, and galloping on a horse. He is comfortable with engineering science in the grade of cell phones and laptops, and is too portrayed speaking earnestly with nuclear scientists and overseeing scores of missile tests.
Kim appears to want to reinforce the impression that he is young, vigorous, on the motility—qualities that he attributes to his land besides. Speaking directly to the people in April 2012 in that first public speech he gave as their leader, he confidently promised that N Koreans would no longer accept to tighten their belts. Afterwards he announced his byungjin policy: that Democratic people's republic of korea tin have both its nuclear weapons and prosperity. Animated by the optimism of one whose privilege made him believe anything was possible, he has prioritized both these issues and personally taken ownership of them—all part of creating and nurturing his brand.
The images that the regime chooses to disseminate and weave into Kim's hagiography say a lot virtually how Kim envisions North Korea's futurity and his identify in information technology. The carefully curated public appearances of Kim's wife, Ri Sol-ju, provide the government with a "softer" side, a thin veneer of fashion and adept humor to mask the brutality, starvation, and deprivation endured past the people, while reports most the existence of peradventure multiple children hint at Kim and his wife's fecundity and the potential for the nativity of another male heir to the Kim family dynasty (although I wouldn't rule out the possibility for Kim to choose a daughter to pb North Korea, given his "modernistic" tendencies). For the toiling masses as well as for the elite, Ri, the glamorous and devoted wife, is an aspirational figure.
To outside scholars, Ri's public appearances offer something else—a glimpse of an emerging material and consumer culture, which Kim seems to be actively promoting. Even every bit tension with the United States went into overdrive after a sixth nuclear test and the launch of numerous ballistic missiles during the summer and fall of 2017, state media showed Kim and his married woman touring a North Korean cosmetics factory. He reportedly urged the industry to exist "world competitive," praised the mill for helping women realize their dream of beingness beautiful, and offered his own comments on the packaging.
In improver to the dazzler industry, the vision of economic development that Kim has been promoting includes ski resorts, a riding lodge, skate parks, amusement parks, a new airport, and a dolphinarium, peradventure because he considers these as markers of a "modern" country. Or in his naiveté he may but want his people to enjoy the things to which he has had privileged admission. (Fujimoto claimed that when Kim was 18, he ruminated to the sushi chef, "We are hither, playing basketball, riding horses, riding Jet Skis, having fun together. But what of the lives of the average people?")
A Tale Of Two Koreas
GDP Per Capita, USD
Kim may likewise be using the imagery of these amenities as a corrective, a style of undermining the dominant external narrative of a decomposable, starving, economically hobbled North korea. Perhaps fifty-fifty more than importantly, he may be deploying these signs of affluence to arts and crafts an internal narrative about North Korea'due south textile well-being at a fourth dimension when his people are being exposed to more than and more data most South korea's wealth. DVDs and wink drives of Due south Korea'southward soap operas and K-pop music take been smuggled into the country in ever greater numbers, infiltrating the previously sealed mental and cultural landscape of Northward Koreans and presenting a potential danger to the regime. Equally North Korean defector Thae Yong-ho recently said in testimony to the U.S. Congress, this access to data virtually how the world outside Democratic people's republic of korea lives is first to have a real touch on: "While on the surface the Kim Jong-un regime seems to have consolidated its power through [a] reign of terror … there are great and unexpected changes taking place within North Korea."
Of course, Kim even so has enormous power and, like his father and grandfather, the willingness to hold onto it through farthermost brutality. He maintains control through purges and executions—punishments and acts of revenge he appears to inflict with bask. In the 6 years of his reign the regime has purged, demoted, "reeducated," and shuffled scores of senior leaders.
There was also the spectacularly shocking public humiliation of Kim's uncle Jang Vocal-thaek in 2013, who was labeled "homo scum" and "worse than a dog" and so reportedly executed past an anti-aircraft gun for allegedly undermining the "unitary leadership of the political party" and "anti-party and counterrevolutionary factional acts." Kim probably also ordered the deadly attack by the application of a VX nerve agent—one of the most toxic of the chemical warfare agents—against Jong-nam, his one-half-brother and one-time competitor for the position of supreme leader of North Korea. Captured on camera, the attack occurred in Malaysia's airdrome, and images of Jong-nam'due south gruesome expiry were circulated around the earth.
Kim has made it clear that he will not tolerate whatever potential challengers. And his rule through terror and repression—confronting the backdrop of that pastel wonderland of waterparks—ways that the terrorized and repressed will go on to feed Kim'due south illusions and expectations, his grandiose visions of himself and North Korea's destiny.
Kim Jong–un has overseen 4 nuclear tests and debuted ballistic missiles of various ranges, launched from multiple locations. STR/AFP/Getty Images
Bigger, badder, bolder
For the by six years, Kim has poked and prodded, testing and pushing the boundaries of international tolerance for his actions, calculating that he can handle whatever punishment is meted out. To a large extent, he has maintained the initiative on the Korean Peninsula, to the frustration of the Usa and his neighbors. And as the U.S. and the international community have imposed ever stricter sanctions, Kim has chosen to double down on his nuclear weapons despite the financial consequences and the increasing international isolation.
Just ii weeks after N Korean negotiators agreed to the 2012 Leap Twenty-four hour period bargain with the U.S., which called for a moratorium on Pyongyang's nuclear and ballistic missile tests in exchange for nutrient aid, the new Kim authorities announced its intention to acquit a space launch, using the aforementioned ballistic missile technology banned by sanctions. Although that space launch failed, Due north Korea, despite international condemnation of the April test, had success with its next endeavour, when information technology launched a satellite into orbit in December 2012. Past portraying Kim Jong-un equally a hands-on leader who personally ordered the rocket launch from a satellite command center, the land media framed their new leader every bit bold and action-oriented even in the face up of widespread international censure. Two months after in February 2013—just a trivial over a twelvemonth into Kim's rule—North Korea conducted its 3rd nuclear test, and Kim'due south first.
Nether Kim, Democratic people's republic of korea has pressed the accelerator on nuclear and missile development and has codified its status as a nuclear-armed country by inscribing that description into the revised constitution it issued in 2012. It has also reinforced Kim'southward role in advancing these nuclear capabilities, further solidifying his potency over their apply. Kim has overseen three more nuclear tests, and debuted and tested new ballistic missiles of various ranges from multiple locations, including a submarine-launched ballistic missile and, in July and November 2017, intercontinental ballistic missiles.
North Korea shows every indication of making rapid progress toward the ability to threaten the United States and its allies, while also developing an armory for survivable second-strike options in the result of a disharmonize. But it has consistently asserted, equally it did in the 2013 Police force on Consolidating Position of Nuclear Weapons State, that the regime's nuclear weapons are for deterrence. Subsequent authoritative statements, including the North Korean foreign minister's remarks at the United Nations General Assembly in September 2017, have continued to hew to the same line: "[N Korea's] national nuclear force is, to all intents and purposes, a war deterrent for putting an end to nuclear threat of the U.S. and for preventing its armed services invasion," he said, calculation that Pyongyang'south ultimate goal is to "found the balance of power with the U.S."
In Harm's Way
In Nov 2017, North korea tested intercontinental ballistic missiles with a potential achieve of 8,000 miles–putting the entire United States in range.
While Kim has been developing and demonstrating advanced nuclear weapons capabilities, he has as well focused on diversifying the Due north'southward toolkit of provocations to include cyberattacks, the use of chemical and biological weapons, and the modernization of Democratic people's republic of korea'south military, which is amongst the world's largest armed forces with over 1 1000000 warriors. Kim has presided over high-profile artillery firepower demonstrations, been captured in photographs poring over military plans purported to depict attacks against the United States and South Korea, and has issued inflammatory threats in response to U.S. and international pressure.
The rhetoric has also extended to threats against those who create negative portrayals of Democratic people's republic of korea in pop culture. For example, in 2014, the regime said that the release of the picture show The Interview—a comedy depicting an assassination effort against Kim—would constitute "an human action of war"; N Korean hackers threatened 9/eleven-blazon attacks confronting theaters that showed the film.
Although a 9/11-type event did not happen, the regime made it clear through a cyberattack that insults against Kim and North Korea would not be tolerated and that the fiscal consequences for the perpetrators would exist dire. North Korean hackers destroyed the data of Sony Pictures Entertainment, the visitor responsible for producing the film, and dumped confidential information, including salary lists, virtually l,000 Social Security numbers, and v unreleased films onto public file-sharing sites.
All the same, despite all the chest-thumping and bad beliefs, Kim is not looking for a military confrontation with the United States. He is rational, not suicidal, and given his near-certain knowledge of the significant deficiencies in Democratic people's republic of korea's military chapters, he is surely aware that Democratic people's republic of korea would not be able to sustain a prolonged conflict with either Southward Korea or the U.S. Although Kim is ambitious, he is not reckless or a "madman." In fact, he has been learning how and when to recalibrate. And information technology is his power to recalibrate, modify course, and shift tactics that requires usa to heed Heuer'south warnings about the "weaknesses and biases in our thinking procedure" and continually challenge our assumptions and perceptions nearly "patterns of expectations" in Northward Korea assay. We have to learn how to contain new data about what is driving Kim Jong-un and how nosotros might counter this profound—and ever evolving—national security threat.
It is true that Kim has been emboldened since 2011, and he'due south gotten away with a lot: scores of missile exam launches, nuclear tests, the likely VX nerve amanuensis attack against his half-brother in Malaysia, a 2015 incident involving a landmine in the DMZ, the Sony hack in 2014 in which North Korean entities wiped out one-half of Sony's global network in response to the release of The Interview, and the mistreatment and decease of U.Southward. denizen Otto Warmbier, a educatee tourist who was detained and sentenced to 15 years of difficult labor for alleged hostile acts against the N Korean land. However, Kim has carefully stopped brusque of actions that might lead to U.S. or allied military responses that would threaten the regime.
That said, he has also been firm in his insistence that he will not surrender North Korea's nuclear weapons, regardless of threats of military attacks or engagement. It is articulate that he sees the program as vital to the security of his regime and his legitimacy equally the leader of North korea. He may well be haunted by a very existent fear of the consequences of unilateral disarmament.
The North Korean regime has often made reference to the fate of Iraq and Libya—the invasion and overthrow of its leaders—as key examples of what happens to states that surrender their nuclear weapons. At the 2017 Aspen Security Forum, Dan Coats, the U.Due south. manager of National Intelligence, said that Kim "has watched … what has happened effectually the world relative to nations that possess nuclear capabilities and the leverage they have," and added that the "lesson" from Great socialist people's libyan arab jamahiriya for Due north Korea is: "If you had nukes, never give them up. If you don't have them, go them."
If we unpack this comparing, we tin envision how deeply Kim Jong-un might have been afflicted by the death of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi. The once "king of kings in Africa," who ruled Libya for four decades, was captured by rebels in October 2011, a appointment well into the process of grooming Kim for leadership and but two months earlier Kim Jong-il'due south death. Graphic images of the bloodied Qaddafi ricocheted effectually the world. Contemporary reports described how Qaddafi was captured, hacked and beaten by a mob, shirtless and bloody, his body then stored in a freezer.
As Kim assumed his status as the newly anointed leader of Democratic people's republic of korea, it's likely that this imagery was seared in his encephalon. And Washington's promises of a brighter future for North Korea if it denuclearized probably seemed hollow to the regime in Pyongyang. The North'south strange ministry said at the time that the Great socialist people's libyan arab jamahiriya crisis showed that the U.Southward.-led attempt to coax Libya to give up its weapons of mass devastation had been "an invasion tactic to disarm the country."
Moreover, Qaddafi'due south death occurred during the and so-called Arab Bound, when a wave of popular protests against authoritarian regimes convulsed the Middle E and North Africa between 2010 and 2011. The overthrow of regimes hitherto believed to be invincible probably highlighted for Jong-un the potential consequences of showing any signs of weakness, and reinforced the brutal suppression of dissent practiced by the Kim dynasty.
Even without all these alert signs, however, information technology is unlikely that Kim would have given serious consideration to denuclearizing his country. For him and his generation, people who came of historic period in a nuclear North Korea, the idea of convincing is probably an alien concept, an artifact of a afar "pre-mod" time that they see no advantage to revisiting, especially given the Trump administration's hints almost "preventive war" and the president's own tweets threatening "fire and fury" against Kim and "military solutions [that] are now fully in identify, locked and loaded."
Dusk falls on Pyongyang, where three generations of Kims have ruled since the country'south founding in 1948. David Guttenfelder/National Geographic Creative
Edging Toward Hubris
North korea'due south highly provocative actions in the summer and fall of 2017—demonstrating ICBMs, conducting a examination of a likely thermonuclear device, and threatening to detonate a hydrogen flop over the Pacific—suggest that Kim's confidence has grown over the past six years. After all, he has outlasted both Southward Korean president Park Geun-hye and President Barack Obama. Perhaps he thinks he can out-corking and out-maneuver President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping as well.
Such conviction may be bolstered by the fact that Kim has notwithstanding to face a real "crunch" of the kind his male parent and grandad had to face up and manage. He has relied on military demonstrations and provocative actions to become his way, and has no feel in the arts of negotiation, compromise, and diplomacy.
Qualifications by Generations
Given the steady drumbeat of internal purges, the sidelining of North korea'south diplomats since 2011 considering of Kim'southward focus on advancing his nuclear weapons plan and conventional capabilities, and Kim's apparent reveling in his recent war of words with President Trump—Kim called Trump "mentally deranged" in response to Trump's personal attacks confronting Kim in his tweets and speech to the U.N. General Assembly in September—information technology would have a very brave Due north Korean official to counsel dialogue and efforts to mollify Washington and Beijing. Instead, Kim's use of repression and his conferring of financial benefits and special privileges to loyalists has probably encouraged sycophants and groupthink within his inner circle, fueling his preference for violence and aggression.
But he may exist reaching a disquisitional point where he has to make a strategic option. While Kim has avidly pursued nuclear weapons, he is likewise, in accord with his announced policy of byungjin, securely invested in improving the Northward Korean economy—certainly a tall order given the gravity of internal changes, the weight of sanctions, and Beijing's willingness to apply stronger pressure than we have seen before. Trends in Democratic people's republic of korea's internal affairs, such every bit greater information penetration from the exterior earth, loosening of state command over resources and markets, the rising of consumerism, and the growth of a moneyed course, will besides place astringent stresses on the Kim government.
How North Koreans Become Their News
At the same time, international pressure on North Korea has never been greater. A number of recent actions accept the potential to squeeze N Korea'southward ability to earn hard currency for the regime to fund its economic and military goals, including: recent U.N. Security Quango resolutions, such as the latest UNSCR 2397 in response to North korea's ICBM test in Nov; successful U.Due south. efforts to hogtie countries—including China—to cut off trade and financial links with North korea; and President Trump'due south September 21, 2017 executive order imposing new sanctions on Northward Korea (and authorizing wide secondary sanctions). These efforts also take the potential to undermine Kim's ability to advantage elites and suppress their power to make coin for themselves or raise coin for loyalty payments to the authorities.
The combined weight of all these pressures, internal and external, on N Korea, coming precisely at a time of rise expectations within the country, may overwhelm the authorities—unless Kim learns to dial dorsum his aggression. That, of course, is a big if.
We should exist concerned about Kim's hubris. In 2012, when Kim gave his first public speech, he ended with the line, "Allow'southward proceed for our final victory." At the fourth dimension, despite the fact that information technology was delivered confronting the backdrop of a armed services parade featuring the biggest brandish of Korean weapons ever to have been seen by the globe, it sounded to me like the bluster of a new, young leader. For all we know he may have been posturing so, but given recent developments and Kim's likely increased confidence most his ability to call the shots, the U.Due south. and its partners and allies, including China, must exist clear-eyed about the potential for Kim to shift his stated defensive position to a more aspirational i.
I withal concord with the U.Due south. intelligence community'south assessment that "Pyongyang's nuclear capabilities are intended for deterrence, international prestige, and coercive diplomacy," as the director of National Intelligence testified in early 2017. Only I believe it would be a error to extrapolate Kim'south future intentions from his past pronouncements and deportment considering we do not and will never have plenty information almost North Korea's intentions and capabilities that will brand us experience certain nigh our understanding of Kim. He and his country do not exist in an ahistorical infinite that is unchanging and static. Our analysis and policy responses must too change and evolve and be prepared for all potential scenarios. We, besides, must avoid edging toward hubris.
Fifty-fifty every bit we parse every statement issued past Northward Korea, the country'due south media content, the satellite imagery of its infrastructure, the state-sponsored videos, and the testimonies of defectors, we must think that Kim is watching us as much every bit nosotros are watching him. The U.Southward. must work to minimize the threat of Northward Korea'southward nuclear weapons program without fueling conditions that could invite unintended escalation leading to armed conflict. The U.South. has opportunities to reshape Kim's calculus, constrain his ambitions, and cause him to question his current assumptions near his ability to blot increasing external force per unit area.
As I have written elsewhere, nosotros can still test Kim'southward willingness to pursue a dissimilar class and shift his focus toward moves that advance denuclearization. We tin exercise then through strengthening regional alliances—especially with Republic of korea and Nippon—that are demonstrably in lockstep on the Due north Korea issue. We can also increase stresses on the North Korean regime by cut off resource that fund its nuclear weapons program and undermine Kim's promise to bring prosperity to N Koreans, and ramp up defensive and cyber capabilities to mitigate the threat posed by Democratic people's republic of korea against the U.South. and its allies. Nosotros should as well intensify pressure level on the regime through information penetration, raising public awareness of Pyongyang's human rights violations, and create a credible, alternative vision for a mail service-Kim era to encourage defections.
Kim Jong-un is still learning. Let's brand sure he's learning the right lessons.
Jung H. Pak is a senior fellow and the SK-Korea Foundation Chair in Korea Studies at the Brookings Institution'southward Center for East Asia Policy Studies. She focuses on the national security challenges facing the U.s. and Eastward Asia, including North korea'south weapons of mass devastation capabilities, the government'due south domestic and strange policy calculus, internal stability, and inter-Korean ties. She has held senior positions at the Central Intelligence Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Prior to her work in national security, Pak taught U.S. history at Hunter College in New York City and studied in South Korea as a Fulbright Scholar.
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Source: https://www.brookings.edu/essay/the-education-of-kim-jong-un/
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