´The Education of Kim Jong-Un´

The current North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-Un is often read in an ironic, comic-book like key. Or he is considered a cruel tyrant killing not only his people, but also his own family members - which probably is. But what´s the intelligent approach to his rule?

Jung H. Pak worked for the CIA as intelligence community analyst on Korean issues and is a Brookings Institute Senior Fellow, as well as on author on topics related to Korea, particularly the North. The Education of Kim Jong-Un is a very short - under 50 pages book - yet insightful approach to the man who´s both despised and admired but for sure has a mind of his own, which is mostly unpredictable if following the wrong analysis matrix. 

Compared to other books I´ve read this year about Kim Jong-Un this short introduction is very useful if one wants to get familiar with ´the hardest of the hard targets´. A spoiled boy who lived his own life under the sign of priviledge, that was on a boarding school in Switzerland while his people was starving, Kim wants to raise high. It´s a new type of dictatorship he is practising but placed under times of tremendous change and unpredictibility. Hence, the need of a more elastic, creative approach of his regime and, eventually, post-Kim North Korea.

´Kim has made it clear that he will not tolerate any potential challenges. And his rule through terror and repression - against the backdrop of that pastel wonderland of waterparks - means that the terrorized and the repressed will continue to feed Kim´s illusions and expectations, his grandiose visions of himself and North Korea´s destiny´.

In other words, it´s a smarter game taking place out there than you may read in the media - at the time the book was read, there was not too much a fuss about Kim´s health and the raising of her sister on the top of the party hierarchy. Adding Kim in a box with the stamp of ´Craziness´ on the top of it would have been too easy. The guy who did an over 100 kilotons bomb test in 2017 - for the sake of the comparison, as mentioned in the book, the bomb the Americans threw on Hiroshima had just 15 kilotons - has also the power. Nuclearization is an important asset of this regime and ignoring or deriding it is as dangerous as dancing with the bombs. 

Instead, Jung H.Pak suggests a suple and subtle approach, which involves increasing the regional alliances - particularly between US (that´s from an American perspective that the author considers the facts and further developments), South Korea and Japan, as well as through efforts of cutting the resources that fund the nuclear weapons program, a constant cyber war, raising awareness about human right violations and, one of the most important things, creating an alternative vision for a post-Kim era. What I´ve felt is missing for the analysis is the mention of other - less-democratic - interests in the region, such as China and Russia, which would have create a better picture of the real situation on the ground.

The Education of Kim Jong-Un is a practical and insightful read about North Korea and its leadership, which includes fine observations and useful future political projections. The future only will tell what´s the best and how things will evolve in the next months and years.

Rating: 4 stars