North Korea is once again in the news. And that is exactly where Kim Jong Il wants it. There are many who say he is crazy. He is, in fact, many things: horribly evil, manipulative, maliciously calculating and cold-blooded. But crazy he most certainly is not. In fact, in the sense that every move he makes is thought out well in advance and designed to fit into a well-knit master strategy, I would suggest that he is the single most rational actor on the international scene today, and for most of the last two decades.
Kim Jong Il was elevated to the number two position in North Korea by his father more than two decades ago. At the time North Korea had already entered into a period of economic decline – from which they have yet to emerge (more later). The country, a nation of more than 20 million people, had a GDP of roughly $20 billion and a per capita income of less than $1000 (though it must be recognized that the economy is completely controlled by the central government and thus equating their economic statistics to the outside world is difficult at best and certainly overstated.)
At the same time the nation spends nearly half of that GDP on the military. That military includes an army of well over 1 million, but one that uses equipment that is from 10 to 50 years old, most of their tanks having been obsolete for three decades or more, and their airmen are flying aircraft that, for the most part were obsolete by the time of the Vietnam War. Can they still do damage? Certainly. Could they fight and win a conventional war against the modern, well trained, and well equipped Republic of Korea (ROK) army and air force? Not likely. Could they fight and win a war against a ROK military supported by the US? Certainly not. Is there reason to be concerned? Certainly. Even though the outcome of a conventional war would be certain, the cost in lives and material would be immense.
North Korea suffers from a severely depressed economy. There are few meaningful industries, agriculture is antiquated, harvests have fallen short nearly every year for the past 25 years, health conditions for the average North Korean are deplorable, and the average citizen lives with year-round brown-outs and black-outs and a per capita intake of less than 1400 calories per day.
In fact, when Kim took over day-to-day operations of the government in the early 90s (before his father died), the routine assessment from various Asian analysts was that his father – Kim Il Song – was still pulling the string and that the nation would collapse as soon as the father died. It must be remembered that this is a country with no margin for error. Simple mistakes that can be corrected in nearly any other country on the planet cannot be corrected in North Korea. Simply put, every facet of the economy is on verge of complete collapse and has been for two decades.
And so, when Kim Il Song died in July of 1994 the almost universal assessment was that Kim Jong Il would not be able to hold it together. A wide range of scenarios sprung up, each with multiple variations: there would be a military coup, there would be a collapse into anarchy, there would a war of conquest south in order to distract the people and capture the wealth of the ROK. None of these things happened.
Instead, Kim Jong Il has proven to be every bit as capable of leading the country as his father. Without going into any detail about the seemingly endless series of crises and diplomatic overtures of the last 16 years, consider this: one small country (North Korea), led by a man everyone keeps calling crazy and insinuating that he isn’t too swift, has managed to lead five other nations around in a whirl, keeping them off balance even while managing to balance his own heavily handicapped nation. And which nations has he led around seemingly by the nose? The USA, Russia, China, Japan and the Republic of Korea; the smallest of these countries – the ROK – has a population of 50 million and a GDP that is rapidly approaching $1 trillion - 50 times the size of North Korea’s, while the USA has a population 15 times as large and an economy 750 times as large. This seemingly insignificant country, led by this seemingly insignificant figure, has kept off-balance five countries, each of which is massively more capable then North Korea.
Kim Jong Il is not the charismatic figure that was his father (who was equally dictatorial and heavy handed, but nevertheless charismatic). The senior figures in the government follow him out of a combination of fear and reward, with the very senior figures living very well indeed, but subject to constant close observation and the fear of being accused of some act that somehow threatened Kim.
All that being said: what does he want?
Simply put: he wants to survive. Everything that he does centers on one clear goal: survival of his ‘regime,’ which was, until a little while ago just one man deep (himself). Now he has included his son, and the central issue is to insure that he and now his son retain their position of power, at whatever cost to the nation. Everything else is subordinate to that goal.
Why does he engage in all these actions that seem to bring his nation closer to war and thus to the inevitable defeat?
First, he wants to scare the international community in general and the five powers specifically into thinking that war is imminent. To engage in acts that scare the five major powers that he faces is to shock them and the international community into actions that lead to de facto strengthening of his regime: grants of fuel, food and hard currencies that allow him to buy the goods he needs to stay afloat. By raising the specter of a madman sitting atop a huge army, he has repeatedly and successfully coerced various elements in the international community to give him support – fuel, food and money - that he needs to keep afloat.
Second, he is reasonably certain that he has the veto on war. The US and the ROK are not likely to start a war; even thought they would win such a war, the cost would be too high. He knows for a certainty that any war would result in the destruction of his country and with equal certainty his death. There is no upside to starting a war.
Third, in the last analysis he wants international recognition; he wants a settlement to the war and embassies in Pyongyang from the major powers, in particular the US. Simply put, it would represent two great victories: he would present it to his people that the US had finally given in to him – he beat the US; and it would mean that he would be able to appeal for aid from a wide range of foreign capital sources, both public (the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, etc.) and private – corporations in the US, Japan and the ROK who would be interested in developing various resources in North Korea, where labor would be cheap and some resources remain underdeveloped – and where such funds and development would mean he could keep his regime intact for years to come.
What does the ownership of nuclear weapons give him? In Kim’s eyes he sees nuclear weapons as providing further standing in the international community and a greater certainty that there will be no pre-emptive decapitation attack from the US or the ROK.
Is there a chance for war? Certainly. There can always be miscalculations and mistakes, even though he has yet to make a major mistake in 16 years of rule. The rise of his son as the third member of the Kim dynasty raises concerns, as it remains to be seen whether the son will have the skills and evil intellect to control both his country and the international community. But it would seem likely that as long as Kim Jong Il lives and is competent that there is little chance of his actions going too far.
What then should we do? The answer of course depends on what end result is desired. And for various countries that answer varies. For the ROK and the US, the desired end game is a united Korean Peninsula, under the governance of the ROK, with the people in the north joining the people of the south in a single, free, economically strong republic. Such a step will not be easy and the cost of rebuilding the north so that it can economically, politically and socially reintegrate with the south will likely run into trillions of dollars, a more expensive and lengthy problem then the reintegration of East and West Germany during the last 21 years.
For the Chinese such an outcome is probably not desired: a united, democratic ally of the US sharing a common border with China? Nor is it likely that Russia would welcome such an outcome. Japan probably finds themselves torn between these two options, with a strong pro-democracy bent and a desire for expanded economic activities in the region countered by a centuries old animosity between the Koreans and the Japanese.
For the rest of the international community there is mainly a desire to see the 60 year old war ended, the peninsula stepping back from its current level of military preparedness, and the north opened to international economic development.
My own belief is that the only answer for the US is to work with the ROK and the North Koreans to develop a solution that steers around the problem. As horribly unpleasant as it might sound, perhaps one solution would be to place the Kim family in the role of a constitutional monarch, with ceremonial but no real power, a healthy yearly stipend and a string of official residences. Make Pyongyang the twin capital of the country and begin a gradual reintegration process of the two halves of the peninsula. This would require modification of the ROK Constitution, but that is difficult, not impossible. What is certain however is that something new must be done. We have a very smart, completely amoral figure, armed with nuclear weapons, sitting on the top of a badly decayed state. No matter how clever he his, that situation cannot last forever. And continuing to do the same thing that we have done for the last 57 years and hoping for a different outcome IS crazy.
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