A decade of "Kim Jong Un" doctrine - North Korea's dictator makes his brutality public

Created: 01/18/2022, 11:15 am

From: Foreign Policy

Kim Jong-Un (M), ruler of North Korea at a military parade.

© KCNA/dpa

The North Korean dictator is just as brutal as his predecessors - but he has exploited this brutality for new purposes.

• Much of the world underestimated Kim Jong Un in 2011 when he succeeded his father as head of state.

• Ten years later it is clear that the North Korean dictator has managed to steer the domestic and foreign policies necessary for the survival of his regime and to establish his own style of leadership.

• Particularly striking: His openness in showing his own brutality and mercilessness.

• This article is available in German for the first time – it was first published in

  Foreign Policy

  magazine on December 21, 2201 .

In December 2021, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un celebrated his 10th anniversary as the successor to his father Kim Jong Il, who died of a heart attack on December 17, 2011. At this point, Kim Jong Un had only been in the public eye for a year, having been appointed deputy chairman of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) powerful Central Military Commission in September 2010. Although little was known about him at the time, Kim Jong Un may have started preparing for his future leadership role as early as late 2008.

Some observers speculated that a 27-year-old with no managerial experience would have to share power with guardians or be directed by regents. Others hoped that Kim Jong Un, who was partially educated in Switzerland, would implement economic and political reforms that would change the course of the secretive authoritarian state.

Ten years later, Kim Jong Un is still at the head of North Korea - and the country has neither collapsed nor opened up.

Instead, Kim Jong Un has consolidated power at home, expanded North Korea's nuclear and missile arsenal, and improved the country's ties with its traditional ally and largest trading partner, China.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, which poses a major challenge to the country's economy and could potentially trigger a serious health crisis, Kim Jong Un looks more confident than ever today.

North Korea: A decade of Kim Jong Un doctrine – dictator exposes his brutality

Like his father Kim Jong Il and grandfather Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea, Kim Jong Un is a dictator whose legitimacy is backed by the hagiography of the Kim family. The 37-year-old exploits the brutal instruments of repression he inherited from his father and grandfather. But Kim Jong Un is far from being a copy of his predecessors. Over the past ten years he has developed his own distinctive management style.

A characteristic of Kim Jong Un's leadership style is his openness, including his ruthlessness. The 2013 execution of Kim Jong Un's uncle Jang Song Thaek — a member of the leader's inner circle who was married to Kim Kyong Hui (Kim Jong Un's aunt and sister of Kim Jong Il) and convicted of treason — was unusual not only because it was brutal, but also because it was so public. North Korean state media reported the details of Jang's trial shortly after the trial, showing a photo of Jang writhing in humiliation -- an unprecedented occurrence in a country whose refined elites typically disappear from public view.

Both Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il consolidated their power by eliminating rivals, but their actions have never been so overtly publicized.

For example, Kim Il Sung executed or imprisoned members of groups influenced by the Soviet Union and China* in order to secure his power.

We know of these events today not from North Korean statements, but from the work of scholars evaluating formerly confidential Soviet and Chinese material.

Kim Jong Un: Poisoning of half-brother Kim Jong Nam in Malaysia - message to North Korean elite

Kim Jong Un demonstrated his brutality again in 2017 when two women instructed by North Korean agents assassinated Kim Jong Nam, the leader's half-brother, at Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur airport with VX chemical warfare agent. Kim Jong Un is not the first in his family to worry about potential contenders for power at home. Kim Jong Il was also concerned about the ambitions of his half-brothers Kim Pyong Il and Kim Yong Il when he became North Korea's head of state. The elder Kim's solution was to send his half-brothers abroad, far from North Korea's center of power. (Kim Pyong Il recently returned to the country after living abroad as a diplomat for 30 years. Kim Yong Il passed away around 2000.)

Although the assassination of Kim Jong Nam was not publicized in North Korea - the official media reported that a North Korean national had died of a heart attack in Malaysia and the South Koreans were spreading rumors of poisoning - it was a bold and brutal move almost certainly sent the message to the North Korean elite that dissent would not be tolerated and contenders for power would be eliminated.

Kim Jong Un's candor extends to other, less somber matters.

For example, when a North Korean missile disintegrated after launch in April 2012, the country's official media reported on the failure – an extremely rare occurrence.

However, when North Korea under Kim Jong Il failed to launch a satellite into orbit in 2009, state media falsely announced that the launch had been a complete success.

North Korea: The openness of Kim Jong Un - partly also with deficiencies in their own political program

Kim has also publicly acknowledged flaws in his political programs. In August 2020, he admitted at a party meeting that North Korea was not meeting its economic goals. He reiterated this at the 8th Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea in January, when he said the country had missed nearly all of its five-year economic plan's targets due to "various external and internal challenges," alluding to sanctions, natural disasters and the country's border closures of the COVID-19* pandemic.

While these admissions are not particularly significant by Western standards, it is highly unusual for the leader of a country whose propaganda machine routinely tells its people it has everything. Kim Jong Un's frankness may reflect his recognition that North Koreans are finding it increasingly difficult to lie about the economy, especially when they rely on unofficial markets for food and basic necessities -- rather than them Rations of the country's socialist planned economy, which has long been unable to provide for them.

It is also important to note that while Kim Jong Un has been more outspoken than his predecessors in some areas, these are the exceptions and not the rule.

Nor does it mean that he is relaxing his grip on the North Korean people.

In fact, this year Kim Jong Un has ramped up the country's crackdown on foreign cultural influences, particularly from South Korea.

Earlier this year he called on the country's youth league to regulate "anti-socialist" behavior, including foreign slang and foreign-influenced hairstyles and fashion.

North Korea nuclear and missile tests: show of force - more than 120 missile tests

Over the past decade, Kim Jong Un has also shown that he prefers a pragmatic rather than an ideological approach to some issues. This includes his position on North Korea's nuclear and missile tests. The tests have always served both technical and political purposes. H. on the one hand they are intended to improve the quality of North Korea's arsenal of weapons, on the other hand they are a demonstration of North Korean power - for both the international and the national audience. The country has historically chosen symbolic dates like US Independence Day for missile tests to increase political impact. Under Kim Jong Il, failed tests were reported as successes, underscoring their usefulness for political and propaganda purposes.However, under Kim Jong Un, North Korea has admitted test failures and has made it a point to repeat missile tests until authorities get it right.

This was evident in the development of the Hwasong-10, or BM-25 Musudan, medium-range missile in US vocabulary. North Korea began flight tests of the missiles in April 2016, but they failed five times before being successfully launched in June 2016. In 2015, the country also experienced three failed test firings of the Pukguksong-1 (known as KN-11 in the United States) submarine-launched ballistic missile before finally succeeding in April and August 2016.

North Korea has conducted more than 120 missile tests under Kim Jong Un*, compared to about 30 tests under his father and grandfather.

Thanks to this persistence, North Korea now has an arsenal of missiles with a variety of ranges, some types of which could be armed with nuclear weapons.

That doesn't mean Kim Jong Un has never exaggerated North Korea's capabilities - he has - but it is also true that North Korea now has much more sophisticated weapons to boast about.

Foreign policy under North Korea's dictator Kim Jong Un: between risk and diplomacy

Foreign policy, Kim Jong Un has demonstrated a high tolerance for risk and a penchant for leader-to-leader diplomacy in his relations with the United States. In 2017, the North Korean leader conducted three ICBM tests and one nuclear test, despite then-US President Donald Trump* threatening to respond with "fire and fury" should North Korea threaten the United States. After Kim Jong Un achieved his military goal of gaining the capability to strike the mainland US with a nuclear weapon, he turned to diplomacy in 2018, holding a total of three face-to-face meetings with Trump. The whole thing ultimately failed, however, as Kim Jong Un called for sanctions to be eased and Trump considered North Korea's offer of denuclearization to be too small.

Domestically, Kim Jong Un has altered the internal balance of power in North Korea to secure his control of the country. He did this by strengthening the power of the Workers' Party of Korea and diminishing the importance of the military, whose members had become influential under his father's rule. To this end, he gradually distanced himself from his father's policy, which gave top priority to the military and relied on the armed forces as the mainstay of the regime. In 2016, he dissolved the National Defense Commission, the command center of politics, and replaced it with the State Affairs Commission. This move was more than symbolic, as the new commission dropped some senior military members and included more civilians.

Kim Jong Un also worries about his image. He was keen to be perceived as a leader who cared about and spent time with his citizens. He resumed the tradition of the annual New Year's speech to explain his politics and rally his people, a tradition introduced by his extroverted grandfather but circumvented by his introverted father. The younger Kim continues to be shown with a big smile and a hug from children or surrounded by soldiers in state media photos. Here he resembles his grandfather but not his father, who was not often photographed in situations involving physical contact with the common people of North Korea.

Kim Jong Un is working to put his personal stamp on North Korea

Kim Jong Un appears ready to put his stamp on North Korea's course in a clearer way in the coming months and years. A sign of this was the eighth Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea in January, which was reportedly held without the normally required portraits of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Un in the background. At that meeting, the party dropped the term "military-first policy" from the foreword of the party charter, replacing it with the phrase "people-centred policy" introduced by Kim Jong Un. In a country where slogans matter, this could be a signal that Kim Jong Un is willing to tie his legitimacy to his commitment to improving people's lives - a risky promise consideringNorth Korea's economy is on the rocks due to mismanagement, pandemic-related isolation and sanctions imposed on the country for its bad behavior.

Much of the world underestimated Kim Jong Un in 2011.

But over the years, the North Korean leader has managed to steer the domestic and foreign policies necessary for his regime's survival.

In the process, he also developed his own leadership style.

And at just 37, he has a good chance of staying in office for years to come.

by Naoko Aoki

Naoko Aoki

 is a research associate at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland and an adjunct professor at American University.

Twitter: @naokoaoki

This article was first published in English in the magazine "ForeignPolicy.com" on December 21, 2021 - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to the readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.

*Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.

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