North Korea – With or without Kim Jong Il
If Kim Jong Il is incapacitated or dead will North Korea Survive?

One of the defining characteristics of a totalitarian state, particularly one that is dependent on cult of personality, is that few, if any, provisions are made for emergency succession. Between 1974 and 1994 Kim Il Sung expended much effort solidifying arrangements for transfer of power. His son Kim Jong Il, who had been named to the Politburo at age 33 two decades earlier, and subsequently field-tested with increasing positions of responsibility, moved seamlessly into power – at least it so appeared to outside observers. This made North Korea into the only nepotistic communist dictatorship on the planet.

The rest of the world has long speculated about how succession issues are viewed by Pyongyang’s impenetrable inner coterie. Given that Kim Il Sung lived to be 82 years-old, it was thought that if Kim Jong Il inherited his father’s longivity genes, the succession question was something that could be resolved over time. Perhaps 2008 was about the time that Kim Jong Il would begin to introduce his designated heir to the country.

One of his sons mentioned as a possible successor, Kim Jong-woong, is in his mid-thirties, about the age Kim Jong Il began his anointed elevation. Unfortunately for this third-generation Kim, the Dear Leader has to date made no overt demonstrations of Kim Jong-woong as potential new leader.
Most analysts begin with the assumption that dynastic succession will continue to define North Korean leadership. This may be a false presumption. North Korea is exceptional in that it has been the only communist dictatorship with father-son leaders. Some small measure of success in promulgating that concept may be due to the legacy of long monarchical dynasties that marked Korea’s history up till the dawn of the 20th century. Nepotistic succession is ingrained in Korea’s history.

More important than cultural eccentricities was the draconian cult of personality and absolute control imposed by the original authoritarian leader Kim Il Sung, and his decades-long quest to guarantee that his son would follow him. I speculated in my book on Korea that the elder Kim had years to put fail-safe mechanisms into place that would ensure that Kim Jong Il would be able to assume power without worry about a successful coup against him directed by ambitious North Korean officials with more experience and age.

Persuading hardened, experienced leaders to accept Kim Jong Il in his 50s was likely a tough sell without enormous personal pressure – such as holding their families hostage to their loyalty – being exerted upon them. Considering that Kim Jong-woong is young even by Western yardsticks, and that there has not been sufficient time to put coercive measures in place, it seems highly unlikely that Pyongyang’s second, third, and fourth tier power brokers would sit quietly by and permit him to take charge.

Such a callow, inexperienced man is viewed with contempt by elder North Koreans. Unlike America where we question the mental acuity of elder statesmen and revere youth, Asian societies venerate the wisdom and life experience of the elderly and seek their leadership guidance. In the Peoples Republic of China, for example, politburo members under 80 were considered raw youths.

North Koreans officials in positions of responsibility are aware of the precarious situation threatening their existence. Economically bereft, politically stultified, diplomatically leprous, and militarily stagnant, North Korea has survived only by criminal activities and threat of using weapons of mass destruction (WMD) on Seoul or Japan. Less its possible nuclear capability the regime would have imploded years ago. Never would they dare trust their future to a neophyte such as Kim Jong-woong.

Possessing a real or implied nuclear capability – either for direct use of potential export to terror organizations – Pyongyang has managed to wheedle mountains of aid from U.S., Japanese, and South Korean leaders. Thereby the regime has, against all odds, been able to survive and avoid implosion. This possibility chills policy makers in the State Department who fear the specter of instability worse than brie stains on their carefully-knotted rep silk ties.

Since promulgating the abysmally naïve 1994 Agreed Framework, State has been willing to dump obscene amounts of U.S. tax-payer funded assistance into North Korea in return for vague, unverified promises of cessation of nuclear development programs in order to prop up a regime that would have collapsed under the weight of its own corruption.

With the loss of Kim – either through gross incapacitation or death – such policies will be shown to be irresponsible and morally-deficient.

If Kim Jong Il does not recover it is likely that the pattern of events often seen in the former Soviet Union and China will occur. Immediate control will transfer to the first-tier leaders – those whose public faces are somewhat known to outsiders. No one of them will be sufficiently strong to stand alone, so a kind of junta will emerge, with probably representation from the typical strongmen: military, secret police and intelligence agencies, economic planners. In all likelihood they will attempt vainly, to maintain control and continue current policies, all the while jockeying behind the scenes to aggregate personal power and status. They may use a man from the Kim family, Kim Jong-woong or another son, as titular head on an interim basis but he will be a powerless figurehead at best.

This will be a short-lived event. Rising to challenge them will be the relatively younger, pathologically ambitious second and third-tier leaders whose quest for power is defined by the utter ruthlessness of the society in which they have been raised. From this group we may see military leaders attempting to march their units into Pyongyang allied with diplomats and comparatively progressive economists who have conduits to foreign powers, particularly the Chinese or Russians, that may back their play. During this time Kim Jong-woong and all surviving Kim family members will likely be executed, exiled abroad or sentenced to concentration camps. Show trials may be held for surviving first tier junta members whose eventual fate will mirror the Kims.

As for the people of North Korea rising in the streets as was seen when the communist dictatorships of Eastern Europe collapsed, this is theoretically possible but unlikely. The population of North Korea has been starved, imprisoned, and beaten down to the point that internal revolt – that requires at least a modicum of an organized underground resistance movement – will be long coming.

Long-term, Kim’s removal from the scene will presage the collapse of North Korea as we have known it. To reach that point we will see chaos, internal dissention, and vicious in-fighting. The good news is that absent quick emergence of a strong leader the bureaucracy will be self-absorbed with internal machinations and will be loathe to initiate hostilities with neighbors that they may eventually need to prop up their ambition.

Meanwhile, even a perceived weakening of Pyongyang's brutal internal control is bound to encourage tens of thousands of refugees to flee. Most will look north to the Chinese border for safety but it will prove a false illusion. China, unwilling to deal with the refugee flow it now faces, will likely overreact in panic. Mass executions and forced repatriation to North Korean death squads will be Chinese authorities’ first reaction. This will persist, even in the face from protest from the international community. China will ignore protests, bury the evidence, and work frantically to establish a puppet government in Pyongyang with which it can deal.

Other refugees will press southward and be caught up in a desperate situation as they must pass through the main North Korean military force deployed along the 152 km line. We will probably see desertions from some military units that will attempt to defect to South Korean authorities across the 2 km wide Demilitarized Zone. The scene will be chaotic to the extreme as South Korean authorities desperately try to stem the flow across the heavily-mined DMZ, question the veracity of defecting military units (is this a guise for an attack?), and attempt to deal with the issues of illness, malnutrition, and confusion the refugees will carry with them.

Internationally there will be an immediate outcry to prop up the regime in Pyongyang on humanitarian grounds, possibly the ultimate in oxymoronic arguments. Food and relief supplies – some already prepositioned in South Korea – will be airdropped, but will be little more than a fig leaf for the desperate, self-destructing social fabric.

The scenario will get worse before it eventually improves. However, we can be certain of one thing: the State Department has no contingency plans on the shelf for such a catastrophe. Instead, it prefers its normal, reactive approach to events. Until the moment of collapse there will be no policy in place to deal with the pending disaster. After North Korea implodes, State will promulgate hastily-contrived, ad hoc policies in a vain attempt to restore the past and will be chasing a series of horrible events that have the potential to dwarf loss of life in previous catastrophes.

If Kim Jong Il survives this health episode it ought to be an alarm cry for preparation for his eventual demise. Failure of U.S. policy makers to begin immediately to fabricate contingency plans will be a sign of criminal incompetence. But realistically do not expect action until far too late to influence the outcome.

— Gordon Cucullu
October 10, 2008