The TV camera focuses on Kim Jong-un. “Fellow countrymen, I am determined to make sure that you have not endured your many sacrifices in vain,” he says. “We have forced the world to notice us and respect us, and now we need to translate that achievement into food, clothing and shelter for our long-suffering population.
“Today, I am ordering military storehouses opened. We will distribute a million tons of war-reserve rice to our citizens, who need to eat well because we have a huge task ahead transforming what almost every countryman realizes is a sick and broken economy..
“We cannot afford to waste our energy and resources on antagonizing other countries. Thus we will shrink the military. We welcome assistance from international institutions and from other countries, including especially our East Asian neighbors, whose highly successful economic models we will adapt to our needs.
“We are prepared to negotiate with our Southern brothers an agreement for each side to drop its claims over the territory of the other. We must postpone discussion of Korean reunification until we can close much of the enormous economic gap, which currently makes it virtually impossible for Northerners and Southerners to contemplate living together as equals under a single government.
“In exchange for appropriate assurances of non-intervention and the withdrawal of sanctions, we are prepared to halt development of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and shift our resources to programs that will peacefully advance our economy.”
Unbelievable, right? The preceding is from my imagination, but illustrates the magnitude of change that might be involved in a truly strategic shift by North Korea’s ruler.
That’s relevant, now that even such respected commentators as former US State Department senior officials Robert Carlin and Joel Wit claim we’ve already seen change this week that’s “serious,” and “more than just a tactic.”
In what headline writers excitedly described as an “olive branch,” Kim’s representatives met on Tuesday with their Seoul counterparts to discuss issues, starting with an agreement that the North would participate in the Winter Olympic Games next month in Pyeongchang, South Korea. More talks are expected.
Don’t be distracted. Having covered and studied North Korea for 40 years, I feel comfortable saying that its long-term strategy since the Korean War ended in stalemate in 1953 has been and remains to persuade the United States to remove its troops from South Korea and withdraw its security guarantee.
Then, as defectors who have worked in sensitive military and political positions have repeatedly testified, when an appropriate opportunity presents itself, the North intends to conquer the South – regardless of the Southern population’s preferences.
What we are seeing – the North’s recent demonstration of nuclear might followed by a charm offensive aimed at South Koreans – is simply a tactical move within the same old strategy. Both Americans and South Koreans need to understand this, and bear it in mind even as they seek to use talks to calm tensions and avert outright warfare.
Concessions that the North will demand include reductions in mutual US-South Korean defense measures, especially annual training exercises that keep the two countries’ militaries working as a team.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in has long been predisposed to engagement with the North, but even US President Donald Trump, who had threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea, has indicated he is willing to go along to some extent.
Trump agreed to Moon’s proposal to postpone joint exercises during the Winter Games. He tweeted last Thursday that “talks are a good thing,” boasting that his own firm approach had made them possible.
The idea is to use the threat of WMD beyond the Korean Peninsula to hasten the exit of the Americans who now protect the South. ‘Get out and we won’t bomb Los Angeles’ – that’s the message North Korea has been sending
North Korea’s nuclear weapons are intended partly to deter a “decapitation” effort by the US and/or South Korea to take Kim down. But Pyongyang’s weapons of mass destruction also fit its overall strategy. The idea is to use the threat of WMD beyond the Korean Peninsula to hasten the exit of the Americans who now protect the South. “Get out and we won’t bomb Los Angeles” – that’s the message North Korea has been sending.
South Korean opposition leader Hong Joon-pyo was quoted by Yonhap News as saying on December 27 that North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missiles “are designed to block US participation in a war when the North makes an attempt at unification by force.”
Defectors have previously testified that the North Korean military contemplated use of WMD to take South Korea. One, Lee Chong-guk, a former sergeant assigned to the Bureau of Nuclear and Chemical Defense, said his superiors had boasted of having enough chemical weapons to wipe out the South Korean population. It would be impossible to make many Southerners adopt the North’s ideology, he said senior officers told him – so most would have to die.
But let’s return to the scenario outlined above. Why is it such a stretch of the imagination to imagine Kim taking a major step to shift his impoverished country into the mainstream of Asian economic tigerdom – a move that would garner approval from virtually every other regional player, even Pyongyang’s main ally, Beijing?
One big reason is the fact that the Kims are a dynasty. The youngest member feels compelled to uphold policies promoted by his grandfather Kim Il-sung, whom Josef Stalin installed as founding ruler in the 1940s. Kim Sr went on to squeeze out about as much success as the communist model was capable of producing before the 1970s, when his economy began to lag noticeably behind that of its capitalist foe to the south.
Seeking legitimacy and popularity, the grandson has modeled his public persona on the grandfather, from clothing to hairstyle to girth. (And, some say, even facially, via plastic surgery.) If he admitted that Grandpa’s ideas are irrelevant and useless today, he may wonder, what would be the basis of his own demand to be revered as something like a living god?
Even if there isn’t actually a manual for training up-and-coming Kim dynasts, there might as well be. Consider a key fact: They don’t study any variety of economics that, after the fall of the Iron Curtain, would be considered even remotely valid in more than a handful of countries.
Kim Jong-il, the middle member of the dynasty, ruled from 1994 to 2011. He had been a political-economy major at Pyongyang’s Kim Il-sung University in the 1960s. But defectors familiar with the curriculum have said that what those studies entailed was celebrating the wonders of communism and rejecting the evils of capitalism.
Kim Jong-il found showmanship more interesting. For his entire career his focus was on propaganda. Persuade the workers to work harder? Forget about raising pay when they do well. Inspire them, instead, with movies or stage musicals that extol patriotism and diligence.
Toward the end, the middle Kim came to understand the importance of material incentives. But – probably for the same reasons that keep his son in the family harness – Kim Jong-il never brought himself to overturn his father’s socialist rules.
It’s probably even more important that Kim dynasts are taught that winning over South Korea is all. Coming in second – surviving for a while, but losing in the end – is not acceptable.
Army First Lieutenant Lim Yong-son, after his 1993 defection, passed along to me a bit of army lore regarding a time after Kim Jong-il was promoted to marshal. His father, Kim Il-sung, asked a couple of senior officers what would happen if war broke out and North Korea lost. “We would never lose,” they replied.
“But what would happen if we did lose?” Kim Il-sung asked his newly marshal-ranked son.
“If we lose, I will destroy the world.”
“You’re very brave, and it’s good thinking. You’re definitely talking the way a marshal should talk!”
Professors of political-military strategy reportedly tutored Kim Jong-un. Whether or not he privately recognizes flaws in the system he inherited – and it is true that he has made minor changes – he has left it largely in place throughout his six years in power.
Kim doesn’t need to be a thinker to maintain North Korea’s steadfast policy emphasis on inspiring a US exit from South Korea that would leave the South more open to conquest. In contrast to Trump’s fraught band of newbies in the White House, a number of veterans serve Kim
He’s also, like his father, more of a showman than an economic thinker. Much of his domestic expenditure has gone on showcase projects, complete with entertainment and recreation facilities, to impress outsiders and please the top elites in Pyongyang.
But Kim doesn’t need to be a thinker to maintain North Korea’s steadfast policy emphasis on inspiring a US exit from South Korea that would leave the South more open to conquest. In contrast to Trump’s fraught band of newbies in the White House, a number of veterans serve Kim.
Kim Yong-nam, an 89-year-old specialist in foreign affairs, for example, is the official head of state, the one who greets top foreign dignitaries. He was already in charge of foreign policy when I made my first trip to Pyongyang in 1979. He invited me to lunch and for five hours attempted to persuade me and, via my paper, Washington officials, that the US should withdraw its troops.
North Korea has claimed that its nuclear weapons are necessary for survival. Kim Jong-un clearly wants the world to believe he would use them to defend his rule. His minions point to Iraq to illustrate the perils of denuclearization. Saddam Hussein is dead. So are his sons.
But Iraq, as a country, still exists. North Korea with its artillery and other conventional weapons was successfully deterring attack long before it developed nukes. Simple fact: The country could be far better off without Kim or his nukes.
The key to understanding why nukes are necessary for the Kim regime’s survival is the fact that it persists in scheming to take over South Korea, instead of focusing on peaceful development on its side of the border. Probably it would take a new regime, headed by a Korean Deng Xiaoping, to change this long-standing strategy.
Thomas Daniel Kuhn In addition to, not rather than.
Bradley K. Martin
Jeez Brad, take an opiod and chill out. I am certain that there are a couple of dozen american drug companies that would supply you and cheap too. Just because Carp Diem called you a propagandist ( the truth always hurts) is no reason for you to get your shorts in a knot , get all red in the face and go lookig for your handgun to resolve the matter. What you have to admit is that for Americans there is only one side to any issue and thats America`s side. Only one way to negotiate and that is through threats.Only one solution and that is tori bomb the livn bejeezus out of any country that disagees with you. I live in South America and worked all over latin America , I know you well. El Salvadore, Honduras, Venezuela and Cuba are just on little smaller back burners than is North Korea. Also China, Russia and Iran are always on the boil keeping those huge profits gained by fleesing the gullible American public, by hyping war threats, coming in.. You should just get your your wife or boyfriend to get a nice kool wet cloth to place on your forehead, take that opiod.and get your blood pressure down.
Your discription sounds as though it would apply nicely to the USA rather than North Korea. Trump is indeed a strongman and controlled by the deepstate is he not?
Fearmongering at its laziest.
Thanks. Watch this space. I’ll address such questions in future articles.
I agree and this is what many analysts think of the situation in Korean Peninsula. South Korean leaders are a bunch of idiots and cowards. Kim knows their weaknesses and foolishness. Kim is earning a lot of incredible time to prepare to make nuclear weapons. We need to remember that their sufferings will not just end to nothing, and we need to remember that it was a promised by the family dynasty of Kim that they will destroy their enemies. But world leaders are also cowards like the EU. More and more aids are pouring in to North Korea but unfortunately it was used only in making weapons that will also be used to them. Trump is the only President of America that have balls to bend the knees of North without paying them or not giving aids to sit on me table. The past administration of US are all the same idiots and cowards and pay North which North used for making to weapons to shoot to country’s who give help and aids to them like EU and US. North will not stop that’s the truth, he will just buy time.
Stuart Budgen Hi No one have anything against Americans posting on Asian Times forums. What make some of us frustrated is US politics and the actions by the US State Department. Most of my American friends say the same.
I see you live in the Philippines, I have lived there too many years. In my humble opinion the People of the Philippines have the right to choose their politicians without any interference. The US must respect Philippines sovereignty. Americans is most welcome in the Philippines. Even the Muslim Rebels MNLF, MILF and the Communist NPA, have NOTHING against Americans and Americans is NOT targeted. What MNLF, MILF and NPA is that the US has participated in helping previous US puppet regimes in the Philippines to arrest and kill their people.
We must understand President Duterte get grumpy when The US State Department work to have him unseated, they have even planned to kill President Duterte and the founder of the Communist party, Jose M. Sison. President Duterte even fear the US will use Daesh to kill him. https://youtu.be/aV9x13nFtO8
The Filipinos help Americans who has problems in the Philippines. The US Embassy does not give a shit about helping US citizens in problems. Ask any American who is in the BID concentration camp in Bicutan, Taguig City. I have spoken to the Americans illegally detained there, I communicate with them, I was even there when President Aquino killed a one-day old grandchild of a well-known communist leader, by depriving the mother needed food and medication.
Praise the Lord, President Duterte is doing his utmost to repair the damages made by previous US friendly Philippine Presidents. President Duterte is even building a new building in Bicutan to provide housing and implement basic human rights for Americans illegally detained there. Duterte is cracking down on corruption and those who detain Americans for extortion purposes.
Anyway, the Philippines is not the only country who has had problems with the US wars, regime changes, assassinations and using the US terrorist friends to create misery. US and IMF try to create havoc in Pakistan to force the Pakistani military to intervene. Afghanistan, Middle East, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, to name a few, has had bad experiences.
How can NK forced a peace negotiation based on terror? Which country will accept this kind of proposal? Only pure rhetoric on the part of the Fat Boy.
Spot on
David Bedford We can’t wave a magic wand and force countries to change overnight, change is a very gradual process.
And we have to deal with all the people we encounter whether it be dictators or not.
At least we stand for something and there are many decent countries out there doing well because of us.
If you focus on the negative side of things, you will always find alot of what you focus on. But to balance your view you might want to focus on some of the good that we do also.
Incidently Saudi Arabia is now beginning to improve.. We have to look out for our interests as well as improve the standards of human rights. No one is perfect but if you look at our people and even our leaders, it is quite obvious that we are pretty decent and our democracy, despite its flaws, is a pretty good example to follow.
You’re mistaken about my preferences, Laurent. If South Korea went nuclear, I think I would understand that shift and see it as far better than a new war. I do understand the concern about a snowball effect on nuclear proliferation — if SK went nuclear, so would Japan — but it does seem odd that we have nuclear-armed Pakistan and Israel and not South Korea. BTW, I’ve never been a neocon. That was the group that brought war in Iraq. I was opposed to that all along (and had turned against the Vietnam War in 1965). In Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader (2004) I favored engaging with the North Koreans to see if they’d negotate away their nuke program. They wouldn’t, and we seem now to need something else besides negotiations. If I were South Korean I’d consider going nuclear.
Speculation and fearmongering.
Could be true that NK has been and will be die hard to unify the south. It is also the truth that SK wants to do the same thing. So the next phase would see the competition between two Koreas over which side would be the winner to conquer the other and unify the whole Korea. NK has not a advantage now , with far less population and very slim economy, and without a powerful supporter like USA to SK. Now the nuke weapons changed something, NK could balance SK and US together with Nuke weapons. Another thing is the nature of leadership, NK is determined to do its job, and the determination is in the hands of just one man KIM, he could have killed his own uncle , a very high positioned veteran of NK army, therefor no one in NK can stop Kim’s determination. SK is very different, its leadership changes every 4 years, the former president is now in prison, that shows how divided the political factions. Yes, the only power that can stop NK is from USA. NK has been working on US relation for many years, even during the present tension, NK and US still has low profile negotiations. NK will continue do that, US may not the sure winner, judging the history of dealing the NK nuke weapons.
There’s a lot of back and forth with personal attacks galore in the commentary. Not very useful. But Mr. Martin does make claims to personal knowledge that will be difficult to confirm from independent, disinterested sources. Be that as it may, I would find much more interesting and even useful a review of who in NK supports the Kim dynasty, what is the power base and from whom or what do they derive that power. No strongman or dynasty survives without a machine in support, indeed that machine often has considerable control over the strong man, to the extent that threatening that base can get the strongman replaced. I’m sure the U.S. intelligence agencies are constantly trying to maintain their knowledge of this very subject. Perhaps Mr. Martin could lay out some of this.
Hi Stuart Budgen, US bullying and wars are OBSOLETE. We see China and Russia have much more success in using trade, tourism, and investments to achieve their objectives. The US completely underestimate people’s intelligence and with alternate media they no longer have monopoly on the “truth”. It is not so easy to get away with false flags, covert operations and regime changes. The US Empire is one the verge of collapse. The increased US censorship of the internet by deleting and/or demonetizing Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube accounts is a sign of weakness. The US is afraid of the truth and has started revoking US citizens Constitutional rights for freedom of speech.
Asia, Africa, and Europe have had enough of US “Deep State” politics. Americans too has had enough of the “Deep State” politics, foreign and domestic lobbyists, the secret societies, sex and Satanist cults who has compromised US politics. All the scandals make US politics look like a scam and organized crime. The poor get stuck with the debt, and the rich take their money and party with Jeffrey Epstein at his recreational homes in United States Virgin Islands. The US Virgin Islands is running out of virgins, so the US “Deep State”, Jeffrey Epstein, The Clinton Foundation, ISI, and Mossad probably will franchise the Orgy Islands™ concept around the world.
You see this is exactly what I’m talking about..
You people have a blinkered view of the world.
You see the bad in us and steep it up against us. And you omit the bad in everyone else.
You see our mistakes and not our achievements. And you omit the mistakes in others and highlight their achievements.
It is a heavily biased perspective.
Just go on seeing things in that way then, what does it change in my life?
Funny word btw neo con hehehehehe
Sounds like a trendy anti western mind conditioning to me.
Go on feeding your biase with the things you read and spend your whole life blinkered in that way.
Cheers
Bradley K. Martin ‘career’ writings for corporate media that is hellbent on forcing American rule over the rest of the world, you are a real snowflake to get so bent out of shape at someone calling you out for the propagandist you are, it must really freak you media hacks out that North and South Korea are giving peace a chance before America restarts their wargames depicting decapitating Kim John Un on North Korea’s border. You really are a POS!