What to Do About Kim Jong-Un

By Michael Mazza

Michael Mazza is a research fellow in foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he analyzes US defense policy in the Asia-Pacific region, Chinese military modernization, cross-Taiwan Strait relations, and Korean Peninsula security. A regular writer for the AEIdeas blog, he is also the program manager of AEI's annual Executive Program on National Security Policy and Strategy.

In the wake of North Korea’s January nuclear test, White House spokesman Josh Earnest described U.S. goals for the Korean peninsula. “We want the North Koreans to end their provocative acts,” he said, “both in the form of missile tests and nuclear tests, to commit to denuclearization, and to demonstrate a commitment to pursuing peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.” Worthy goals, to be sure, but impossible to achieve as long as the Kim regime is in power.

To be clear, Kim Jong-un will never commit to denuclearization nor to peace and stability on the peninsula. To do so would be antithetical to the regime’s very nature. Writing recently for National Review, my colleague Nicholas Eberstadt described the North’s “essentially messianic—and unapologetically racialist—vision of history.” In that vision, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) will unite the Korean people, throw out foreign invaders, and establish DPRK rule over the peninsula.

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