North Korea’s latest nuclear test is a desperate act designed for domestic appeasement rather than foreign belligerence. There are a number of factors essential to the stability of the regime and all have contributed directly or indirectly to the decision to conduct a second nuclear test:
Uncertainty in the search for a successor to Kim Jong-il (The Dear Leader)
In August 2008 Kim Jong-il suffered a stroke and was not seen in public for six months. When he re-appeared the fact that Kim had visibly lost weight and looked frail and this will have led to concerns in the upper echelons of the North Korean leadership that he may be perceived domestically and internationally as weak. Weakness would be seen as a serious threat to continuity of the regime. There are clear signs that this is leading to a vigorous internal power struggle between Kim Jong-il and the military.
Kim Jong-il may seeking to position one of his two eldest sons as successor, whilst the establishment favourite remains Jang Song-taek, Kim Jong-il’s brother-in-law. In January there was a major re-shuffle with at least nine cabinet ministers replaced. Last week Choe Sung-chol, a senior figure in North Korea's Workers Party of Korea, was executed for promoting better relations with South Korea--all signs that hardliners are consolidating their grip.
The military wield huge influence in North Korea. The standing army approaching 1.2 million personnel is amongst the largest in the world despite having one of the lowest GDP per capita rates in Asia—USD$1800 (2008). The ‘Military First’ (Songun) policy of Kim Jong-il is central to his strategy for clinging onto power—this is the real reason why Kim Jong-il has not taken the presidency of his father and instead his official position is Chairman of the National Defence Commission.
The military pervade every level of society and senior ranks enjoy significant material privileges in running a succession of trading and licensing companies. The ‘military first’ doctrine applies to the allocation of scarce food supplies too. The military were deeply suspicious of the Six-party process seeing diplomacy as a direct threat to their personal interests. In February Kim Jong-il replaced the two most senior figures in the military with hardliners, whether he did so willingly is unclear, but the effect is now clear.
Famine
North Korea has its own state religion called juche which means self-reliance. Juche is a source of immense national pride so when successive poor harvests and flooding result in crop failures the North Korean government do not want to acknowledge the problem until it is too late. In the 1990s it was estimated that nearly 2 million died out of a population of 24 million (2008). Last year the UN World Food Programme estimated that 6.5 million, almost 1 in 4 of the population, were in need of urgent food aid.
The contraction in the economy caused by a decline in exports means that the regime also lacks the hard currency to buy grain on the open markets. Particularly vulnerable to food shortages and even protests against the regime in Pyongyang are the provinces in the north east of the country where the nuclear test was believed to have taken place. Being able to portray food shortages as the US, Japan and South Korea seeking to ‘starve’ the North into submission have been used as a tool to quell unrest and hide the regime’s staggering incompetence and corruption.
US ‘Engagement’
Nothing unifies the North Korean nation together more than a visceral hatred of the United States and a sincere belief amongst ordinary people that they are under imminent threat of invasion. The US ‘threat’ is hyped-up in the state owned media, taught as certain fact in schools and blazoned across posters in major cities. The perceived threat from the United States galvanises the ‘Military First’ policy and ensures that the average North Korean is willing to endure almost any hardship to avert invasion.
The North Korean leadership prefer a ‘Hawkish’ policy out of Washington as it suits their domestic agenda. They are clearly uncertain as how to handle the Obama/Clinton offer of ‘normalisation’ of relations and even the offer of a peace treaty formally ending the Korean War, in exchange for verifiable decommissioning of its nuclear weapons programme. One of President Bush’s final acts was to remove North Korea from the list of states which sponsor terrorism, which must of severely disorientated Pyongyang — and the rest of the Western foreign policy community. Pyongyang wants/needs a foreign policy in which it is totally isolated, but not ignored — it will hope the nuclear test will have achieved that.
So what should the international community do? North Korea is the only unreconstructed Stalinist state on the planet. It follows North Korea is also a failed state. A failed state with nuclear capability, not to mention a cultish personality disorder, cannot be ignored. The despotic regime in Pyongyang is a dangerous threat, even if that threat is greatest to its own people. Its sole interest is in preserving the military grip on power through the transition of leadership. Our best hope of defeating this appalling regime is to begin by understanding it as only then can we set about in earnest to undermine it.
In 1939 Winston Churchill famously declared:
"I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest."
In 2009 the same might be said of North Korea and ‘national interest’ may once again hold the key.
