{"id":31082,"date":"2017-03-28T14:30:54","date_gmt":"2017-03-28T03:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=31082"},"modified":"2017-03-24T15:41:56","modified_gmt":"2017-03-24T04:41:56","slug":"north-korea-stronger-kim-weaker-kims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/north-korea-stronger-kim-weaker-kims\/","title":{"rendered":"North Korea: stronger Kim, but weaker Kims?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Image<\/p>\n

Finding a solution to North Korea\u2019s accelerating nuclear and missile programs grows more urgent by the day. Our previous strategies\u2014delay and denial\u2014will no longer avail us. But the three standard options\u2014diplomacy, sanctions or use of force\u2014all have downsides. Diplomacy\u2019s proven ineffective; sanctions are difficult, slow and uneven; and the use of force might well beget a wider war. Is there a sleeper option\u2014regime change? In the wake of Iraq and Libya, regime change has a bad name. But the question\u2019s worth revisiting, precisely because of the recent killing of Kim Jong-nam.<\/p>\n

Kim Jong-il died in December 2011. Now, over five years later, we\u2019re starting to get a clearer picture of what the successor regime looks like. It\u2019s a regime run by a leader who\u2019s both ruthless and insecure. Consecutive waves of purges have cut a swathe through North Korea\u2019s elite, claiming the scalps of Kim Jong-un\u2019s uncle<\/a> and senior military leaders<\/a> among many others. Kim Jong-nam is the latest victim of that effort. Part of Kim Jong-un\u2019s insecurity seems to stem from his own familial circumstances. The middle child (of three children) from his father\u2019s fourth common law wife<\/a>, he probably believes that some of his brothers and sisters still favour a different distribution of their father\u2019s estate. Such a belief would be far from unusual even in most normal families, and the Kim family is far from normal.<\/p>\n

Kim Jong-un and his wife had a daughter, named Kim Jun-ae, in 2012. We know this<\/a> from Kim Jong-un\u2019s close friend, Dennis Rodman. It\u2019s possible\u2014not certain, but possible\u2014that a son was born to the couple in late 2016. Ri Sol-ju, Kim Jong-un\u2019s wife, spent several months out of the public eye. Rumours at the time suggested either a possible pregnancy or a falling out of favour between the wife and Kim Jong-un\u2019s younger sister, Kim Yo-jong. By late October 2016, Ri Sol-ju had been out of the limelight so long that the British tabloid press had begun to speculate on her execution<\/a>. She reappeared in public in early December<\/a>\u2014certainly not clutching a new-born babe, but that\u2019s hardly surprising. Pyongyang\u2019s not Buckingham Palace\u2014it doesn\u2019t announce the birth of an heir with fanfare and photographs.<\/p>\n

If an heir was born in 2016, it would have underlined for Kim Jong-un just what a difficult path now lies before him. It will take the best part of three decades for him to settle the leadership on his son. If he were to die unexpectedly at some point during that period\u2014from ill-health, misadventure, or a drone through his bedroom window\u2014it would be hard to ensure the succession played out as he wished. In such circumstances, the \u2018side branches\u2019 of the family could prove a threat, not merely to his own rule, but to the future rule of his son. Kim Jong-un probably doesn\u2019t worry too much about the second brother\u2014Kim Jong-chol, devoid of progeny, remains so thoroughly hidden from public view that many people seem to have forgotten about him altogether. Media reports suggest he\u2019s more interested in rock concerts<\/a> than politics. Kim Jong-nam was a different matter though\u2014he still had close links to China. And even Kim Jong-nam\u2019s son, Kim Han-sol, born in 1995, might well be regarded as a plausible contender for the future leadership.<\/p>\n

Kim Jong-un probably counts the death of his half-brother as a major victory, important in securing the future transfer of the leadership. True, Kim Han-sol is still alive, but has clearly fled<\/a> with his mother and sister. Kim Jong-un\u2019s problem, though\u2014and it surely must have occurred to him by now\u2014is that his actions have strengthened his personal position but disempowered the broader family. A Kim family that has fewer potential successors\u2014and the preferred one still thirty years away (assuming that he has, in fact, already been born)\u2014is more vulnerable to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune than it was before. Indeed, the prospects for successfully displacing the Kim family from its monopoly on political power in North Korea are probably greater now than they\u2019ve ever been. In short, we\u2019ve entered a period in which we have a stronger Kim, but a weaker family of Kims.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what now confronts those hoping to slow and, indeed, reverse the growth of North Korea\u2019s nuclear and missile arsenal. Kim Jong-un\u2019s hand is stronger, but he\u2019s shrunk the leadership talent pool within the family, thereby diluting the prospects that someone from that pool can follow in his wake. (North Korea, remember, has never been ruled by someone from outside the family.) And in doing so, he\u2019s made himself a more tempting target: it\u2019s always easier to behead the snake than the hydra. So, we\u2019re left with a teasing question: have Kim Jong-un\u2019s actions increased or decreased the prospects for regime change in Pyongyang?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Finding a solution to North Korea\u2019s accelerating nuclear and missile programs grows more urgent by the day. Our previous strategies\u2014delay and denial\u2014will no longer avail us. But the three standard options\u2014diplomacy, sanctions or use of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":31083,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[702,86,883],"class_list":["post-31082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-kim-jong-un","tag-north-korea","tag-power"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nNorth Korea: stronger Kim, but weaker Kims? | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/north-korea-stronger-kim-weaker-kims\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"North Korea: stronger Kim, but weaker Kims? | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Finding a solution to North Korea\u2019s accelerating nuclear and missile programs grows more urgent by the day. 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