Amid all the uncertainties about North Korea’s unpredictable young leader, Kim Jong Un, one thing is clear: he has an unrelenting focus on security – his own personal security and the authoritarian regime’s security from external pressure. For personal security and to consolidate his hold on power, Kim – in power for nearly four years — has carried out what appear to be the most extensive and violent purges in the country’s history. For regime security, Kim has pushed the country’s nuclear and missile programs to new levels, aiming for systems intended to deter anyone tempted to use military force against the North and to make the country’s retaliatory and attack capabilities more secure.
As always, however, the regime’s stability is an open question, and some of Kim’s actions may be laying the groundwork for dangerous miscalculation that could jeopardize Kim’s leadership and regional security.
Purge Power
Purging of officialdom has a long and rich history in North Korea, but Kim has taken it to new levels. The South Korean intelligence service says that Kim has executed at least 70 officials in his nearly four years in power. Accurate counts of such atrocities are difficult in a dictatorship as isolated and opaque as North Korea, but this appears well in excess of anything done by Kim’s father, Kim Jong Il (1941-2011) or his grandfather Kim Il Sung (1912-1994), the country’s founder.
Kim’s highest profile executions are of his uncle Jang Song Thaek in 2013 and his Defense Minister, Hyon Yong Chol, this spring. The uncle’s execution was particularly shocking because he was widely viewed as the mentor in charge of grooming his inexperienced nephew. Reports circulated that Jang drew Kim’s ire by cultivating an independent power base. The Defense Minister’s demise was said to be for the simple offense of napping in a meeting chaired by Kim. In addition to killings, Kim has replaced 55 percent of the Supreme People’s Assembly, the biggest housecleaning on record there.
This devotion to purges is probably the result of Kim inheriting his position so young—only 29 years old—and without the lengthy grooming period Kim Il Sung had arranged for Kim’s father, who came to power at the age of 53. While it may tighten his grip in the short term, it has at least two potentially devastating consequences. First, officials will be even more reluctant to give Kim straight advice if they fear it will displease him. This increases the possibility of military or political miscalculations that can take the country into dangerous confrontations. Second, it could encourage more defections by those in a position to be outside the country officially or who can escape.
Devoted to Nukes
Whatever problems Kim has had consolidating power have not slowed Pyongyang’s drive for enhanced military capabilities. The North has been pursuing nuclear weapons for decades and is now a nuclear power. It carried out three nuclear tests between 2006 and 2013 – one under young Kim – and South Korea’s intelligence service says another is in preparation. Estimates vary on how much weapons grade nuclear material the North has; most say the North has about 10 - 16 bombs and can have about 10 more within five years. Pyongyang claims it now knows how to mount a bomb on one of its missiles and last month the head of the U.S. Northern Command publicly agreed.
The North is devoting at least as much effort to its missile force. It has long had a stock of well-tested short and medium range missiles, and its designs have been used by Iran among others. Since the mid-1990s, it has been trying to acquire an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that could reach the United States, and it now appears very close. By virtue of having launched a satellite in 2012, the North showed it could finally field an ICBM-like rocket – it had repeatedly failed prior to 2012 – but questions persist about its ability to carry out a sustained flight with guidance systems capable of hitting targets with accuracy.
Clearly, though, the North has not given up. Commercial satellite imagery this summer showed new construction at the site Pyongyang uses for its long-range rocket work, raising expectations that another satellite launch or long-range missile test is in the offing. Moreover, at its military parade on October 10, the North revealed a new ICBM model, presumably untested, that appears designed for longer-range.
Most noteworthy this year has been the North's testing of technology that shows progress toward a Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM). They have a ways to go on this but appear to have passed some important milestones. Acquiring this capability would give the North Koreans greater stealth in deploying their missile force and would make it harder for the U.S. and others to locate and guard against their nuclear forces. It would also give them the capability to launch nuclear and conventional missiles at adversaries from off shore rather than relying on complicated ICBM technology.
Beyond the inherent capabilities of such technologies, we have to worry about the North selling them. Always desperate for cash, North Korea has been selling its missile technology for decades; Iran's primary medium range missile, the Shahab-3, is essentially a copy of the North Korean No Dong. And the North was caught red-handed helping Syria with the design of the nuclear reactor that Israel destroyed at Al-Kibar Syria in 2007.
Stable or Shaky?
North Korea has proven astonishingly durable in the face of crushing poverty and brutally repressive governments. But anyone watching this highly secretive country over time has to be aware that it could surprise us with a sudden societal collapse. If and when that happened, South Korea, other countries in the region, and the U.S., would have to contend with humanitarian problems – massive refugee flows – and worrisome political/military problems, such as the location and condition of North Korea's nuclear material and weapons. And the cost of rebuilding North Korea would vastly outstrip the cost of other unification programs, such as the integration of Germany's East and West in the 1990s, which cost $100 billion annually for a number of years.
So while North Korea in the present represents a great and unpredictable danger, in the future it promises to become one of the world's great burdens.
