Wiser Kim revels in his role as the West’s nuclear bogeyman
The Supreme Leader has wrong-footed observers on the world stage and at home, says
The journey travelled by Kim Jongun is illustrated by two handshakes, five years apart. The first, with Donald Trump, took place in a hotel in Singapore in June 2018. The second, with Russian President Vladimir Putin, was last September at a rocket launch pad in Siberia.
From talking nuclear disarmament with the United States to supplying arms to Russia, the powerful friends may have changed, but the North Korean leader has kept smiling.
At the end-of-year meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea this week, Kim said it was time to “accelerate war preparations” amid “unprecedented” US-led acts of confrontation. The military situation on the Korean peninsula had become “extreme”, he added, with the North looking to strengthen ties with “anti-imperialist” nations.
This year, he said, had been a “year of great turn and great change”.
It is common to think of North Korea as a bizarre Cold War fossil, but the past year has shown Kim’s ability to adjust to changing geopolitical realities and to balance aggression with compromise.
In recent months, he has continued along the path of high-speed military development while chumming up to Russia and remaining on the right side of China. He has even permitted a tiny measure of political dissent at home.
The biggest challenge has been the change of strategy pursued by the South Korean government since the election last year of a conservative president, Yoon Sukyeol. Yoon’s predecessor, the liberal Moon Jae-in, had a policy of sanctions combined with patient engagement with the North.
Yoon and his allies in the Biden Administration have taken a different view. Instead of shrugging off Kim's missile tests, they have met them with “shows of strength” of their own, intended to underline North Korea’s military inferiority, and to illustrate the dire consequences of stepping over the line into outright conflict.
US aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines and long-range bombers (the kind capable of dropping nuclear bombs) have appeared close to South Korea. The allies have held
Kim’s nation is not that of his father and grandfather, and he presides over changes once seen as unthinkable.
military exercises, and have carried out weapons tests of their own.
Yoon has spoken of pre-emptive strikes on North Korea’s missile sites if they appear to be preparing for an attack. He has abandoned an inter-military agreement aimed at reducing the chances of conflict.
All of this has added greatly to tensions and increased the chances of a “miscalculation” – where one side assumes that the other is about to attack, and goes first. But it has had no obvious deterrent effect on Kim.
Yoon’s policy, which he calls the “audacious initiative”, promises aid if North Korea gives up its nuclear weapons, but it may simply have reinforced Kim’s conviction that the stronger his military forces, the safer he is.
Having assembled a few score nuclear warheads, he has spent the past two years testing weapons systems that could be used to carry them, including short-range cruise missiles, fast hypersonic missiles, and missiles that can be launched from trains and submarines. Last week, North
Korea launched an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of striking anywhere in the US.
In February, according to state media, Kim oversaw the testing of a new “nuclear underwater attack drone” capable of unleashing a “super-scale radioactive tsunami” on naval vessels and coastal ports.
Last month the North successfully launched a spy satellite, the better to enable Kim to target his rockets. Previous satellite launches had failed, but this time Kim’s scientists had help from Russian experts, promised during his September summit with Putin.
It is not clear that their help was decisive, or that the reciprocal favour – North Korean ammunition provided to Russia – will make much difference to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. But the symbolism is clear - the era of engagement with the US is over.
Domestically, Kim has followed a hard line. The authorities have cracked down on the influence of South Korean culture via films and television programmes smuggled into the North. South Korean styles of speech or dress are punished – a defector described the public execution of a 22-year-old man for listening to South Korean music and sharing it with his friends.
However, Kim’s nation is not that of his father and grandfather, and he presides over changes once seen as unthinkable.
One is the emergence of powerful women. The foreign minister and head of protocol are female. Kim’s sister, Kim Yo-jong, is the second-most powerful person in the country. His wife Ri Sol-ju is often seen at his side, as is his daughter Ju-ae, who is looking more and more like an heir apparent.
North Korea has long held “elections” in which members of the Workers’ Party are obediently chosen by every single voter. But last month, for local assemblies, a small proportion of voters rejected the nominated candidates. To think of this as “reform” would be premature, but it is an indication that Kim is conscious of how his country appears.
That he faces constraints is most clear from what he has not done, rather than what he has.
Early last year, South Korean and US intelligence agencies predicted that Kim was about to carry out a nuclear test, his seventh. Kim hinted at this, too, promising to “vigorously perfect the nuclear war deterrence”. It has not happened.
The assumption is that this is a result of pressure from the person with the most influence over Kim – China’s President Xi Jinping. The government of Beijing, which has the power to close the border connecting the North to the rest of the world, has drawn a line that cannot, for the time being, be crossed.