Seeing Through Kim’s Korea
by Col. Kevin Madden
Far East Economic Review
Jan/Feb 2005The so-called “North Korea nuclear crisis” is well into its third year, and a host of commentators continue to speculate on what Kim Jong Il wants, what Kim Jong Il needs, and what North Korea can and cannot do. Unfortunately, these observers fail to fully consider the regime’s ideology, organization, operations and culture, applying their own logic to a uniquely North Korean context. The results are impractical prescriptions.
U.S. diplomats argue for negotiations to “get past” the nuclear issue, as if it were some ancillary element of Kim’s regime. A former Clinton administration ambassador claims that North Korea “is reacting only because it is threatened by the U.S.” As such statements suggest, many of the highest-ranking policy makers in both the U.S. and South Korea continue to labor under common misconceptions about the Kim family regime.
Here then is a primer of myths about Kim’s Korea that could help the statesmen see reality more clearly:
* The Kim family regime wants, or is willing, to make fundamental change. The dictatorship’s survival against potential internal opposition is directly dependent on its ability to control information and maintain surveillance of the population in conjunction with Kim Jong Il’s ability to materially reward the elite. Kim, having learned from the fall of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, is acutely aware that any breach of these controls results in the acceleration of competing domestic forces that would doom the regime.
Since the elite are taught from birth that their survival and success are directly linked to an unquestioning allegiance to Kim, they should only be expected to make selections that reinforce their commitment to the regime. This mindset creates a self-sustaining impetus for obedience and compliance. Faced with the options of eschewing change to maintain coercive mechanisms that ensure regime survival, or accepting change and concomitant regime failure, the regime has no logical choice but to shun change.
* The Kim family regime operates as a conventional government. While North Korea possesses trappings of a modern state, the regime’s operation more closely resembles an organized crime family in both organization and practice. Institutions with practical roles report directly to Kim Jong Il, individuals are promoted based on their loyalty and usefulness to Kim Jong Il, and punishment for “disloyalty” is usually total. Like a mafia family, after loyalty the regime most values an underling’s ability to bring treasure to Kim Jong Il, regardless of the means. The regime’s organization consists of expanding tiers surrounding the core, each reporting within its own pyramidal structure.
* Because North Korea’s economy has failed, the regime has limited offensive military capability and must pursue improved relations in the region and with the U.S. The economic means of support for the Kim Family Regime and North Korean people is unique and challenges the application of conventional analysis. The “socialist” economy, which closely resembles a plantation economy, is designed to sustain a selected portion of the population at a subsistence level so they can in turn service the regime with products and corvee labor. The rest are cast aside and forced to make do within the extremely restricted security system.
Within this macro structure are two prioritized and interrelated microeconomiesthe core elite and the Korean People’s Army (KPA). The former takes precedence over other needs, is hard-currency based, and is largely funded by cash inputs from the sale of illicit drugs, currency and goods counterfeiting, inter national bribery, ROK “investments,” and sale of internationally provided aid.
The KPA support system also gets higher priority than the economy at large and gains funding from U.S.-provided oil, international missile and arms sales, other international commerce conducted through front companies, the control of most industrial production within the regime, and U.S. joint recovery operations. This funding and the independent nature of the military support structure effectively ensures that the KPA, firmly committed to Kim, stays adequately prepared and fully supplied to conduct the WMD-supported blitzkrieg campaign KPA doctrine espouses, substantially insulated from macroeconomic stagnation.
* The Kim family regime’s elites represent a diverse advisory body that offer a range of views to Kim Jong Il, i.e. there are “liberals” and “conservatives” within the regime’s core elite. The monolithic nature of the regime cannot be overstated. All members of the core and local elites have been placed in their positions through a complex system of hereditary ties, family associations and schooling systems. Overwhelming evidence indicates that mere survival, let alone success, in this system depends on unconditional loyalty to Kim Jong Il and his policies.
The chance that someone could attain even a minor position in the regime’s bureaucracy and show anything less than total devotion to Kim Jong Il is slim, at best. At the national elite level, that possibility is nil. This does not preclude regime interlocutors from playing “good cop, bad cop” with foreign negotiators. Often they do just that, presenting different views to disorient and confuse their counterparts.
* Kim Jong Il and the ruling elite are unsophisticated and have a limited understanding of international politics and behavior. While Kim Jong Il’s orientation is influenced by revolutionary juche ideology, his leadership is shaped by the brutal pragmatism taught him by his father. He is further informed by an extensive information-gathering apparatus that ensures he and his trusted elite are fully appraised of international events, opinions and diplomatic techniques. The elite is well-informed and in turn they keep Kim Jong Il extremely well-informed, most likely knowing that the penalty for withholding information would be elimination.
Finally, the regime is acutely aware of its limits and has accurately gauged U.S. responses to gain incredible concessions. One example is the joint recovery operations, where the regime continually fills its coffers with millions of U.S. dollars in return for providing occasional sets of warehoused bones. A second example is Kim’s handling of U.S. and other visiting international scholars through the offices of the Panmunjom element of the Korean People’s Army and Colonel General Lee Chan Bok, one of the regime’s most artful psychological manipulators.
* The Kim family regime recognizes the futility of trying to reunify the Korean Peninsula through force and has given up on the idea. To the contrary, the regime has consistently and aggressively pursued increased offensive and Combined Forces Command combat power-mitigating capabilities to enable reunification by force, particularly over the last decade.
As economist Marcus Noland notes, the regime continues to choose guns over butter, and there is no indication of any change in this orientation. KPA military training and writings consistently stress the themes of “tempo” and “loyalty,” providing the operational and political corrections to the regime’s 1950 failure. The regime’s senior leadership believes a rapid campaign combined with a slow response by U.S. policy makers would allow for victory. It is for this practical reason, and not for “national prestige,” that the regime pursues weapons of mass destruction, seeing them as tools to give U.S. decision makers “cause for pause.”
The bottom line is the regime continues to believe in the concept of armed invasion supported by ROK internal disruption as a viable and practicaland perhaps the onlymethod to reunify the peninsula. Importantly, from Kim’s perspective, he is much closer to advancing this agenda than South Korea is to promoting change in North Korea. Kim is confident he is winning.
* Kim Jong Il is an innovator who badly wants to shed the constraints of juche ideology. Kim Jong Il is a Kim Il Sungist first and foremost whose entire regime is underpinned and legitimized by juche philosophy. Often mistakenly referred to as “self-sufficiency,” juche ideology is a humanist philosophy that casts man as the master of his element. For the regime, this determinist approach lays the responsibility for failure on the shoulders of the people, allowing the regime to abdicate responsibility. Further, given Kim Jong Il’s background and education, it is illogical to expect him to have any orientation but Kim Il Sungism. Kim views the world through a staunchly juche prism and seeks to use other views and methods crafted within the core ideology. These adjustments, often misunderstood as “reforms,” only underscore his commitment to staying the course to achieve reunification.
* Time is on our side-we can ignore North Korea because the regime will eventually fail and fade away. Actually Pyongyang takes a similar view of its opponents. The regime’s core believes that the march of time-at least regionally if not internationally-favors their success. To support this they cite their refusal to ever compromise, commitment to clear and well-defined goals, and willingness to sacrifice, as opposed to what they see as inherent corruption and weakness in the ROK system.
Given Pyongyang’s ability to obtain external support from the South and the microeconomies that exist within the regime, it is logical to assume the regime will survive, if not thrive, for the foreseeable future. This, combined with its ongoing production of WMD, means that over time the regime’s ability to threaten the U.S. and successfully attack the South will actually strengthen.
The implications for U.S. and South Korean policy makers are clear. First they must recognize and treat Kim’s regime for what it is. Refusing to pay for meetings or reward bad behavior, they must avoid unenforceable agreements, security guarantees or other dialogue until North Korea meets basic norms of international behavior. Nothing less than Kim’s recommitment to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, verifiable abandonment of its nuclear programs and willingness to address human rights should earn a place at the table.
To establish these initial conditions, the U.S. must distance itself from participation in appeasement strategies and only support fully monitored aid. It should also develop and implement comprehensive sanctions that deny North Korea the resources it requires to reward its elite and provision its military. States that continue to provide Kim’s regime unmonitored aid, military hardware and training, and other empowering resources should face consequences, like a “security cost” tariff compensating the U.S. for funds spent to deter the North.
Finally, the U.S. must view the Korean Peninsula not as a vestige of the Cold War divided by competing ideologies, but as a region under siege by a brutal dictator. Only when the U.S.-and indeed the international community-recognizes that North Korea represents a clear and present danger to regional peace and prosperity will meaningful solutions be found.
Col. Madden was most recently a senior fellow at the Korean Institute for Defense Analysis in Seoul. He holds masters degrees in Korean studies from the University of Washington and defense studies from the University of Canberra. The views expressed here are his own.