Until North Korean leader Kim Jong Un decides to go full-Ramsay Bolton and feed hardliner Kim Yong Chol to the dogs (or simply shoots him), don’t buy into the idea that Kim Jong Un is moderating his regime.
This bears consideration alongside South Korean and Japanese news reports which indicate that Kim Jong Un has just moderated his regime. According to the Yonhap news agency Kim has replaced three top defense officials with more-moderate alternatives. Yonhap notes a South Korean intelligence source as stating that the new defense chief, “No Kwang Chol has been classified as a moderate person.”
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I’m skeptical that these changes are anything more than Kim centralizing power. And that’s not the same as a program to moderate the regime’s leadership in furtherance of a diplomatic breakthrough with the United States. We should note South Korean arguments to the contrary with skepticism, in that Seoul is now desperate to see President Trump accept any deal with Kim at just about any cost.
Moreover, we’ve seen this game before.
Kim’s primary consolidation of power occurred with his purge of key power players between 2013 and 2016. But I suspect that these purges – sometimes violent, sometimes peaceful – aren’t so much about Kim’s fear as they are about his dominance. By reshuffling military leaders in a way that maintains the fealty of the North Korean military bureaucracy, Kim gives himself confidence that other officials won’t carve out power spaces beyond his control. This is an especially important concern in the senior ranks of the North Korea military, in that those ranks offer ample opportunity to dispense wealth and power in return for patronage. Evidencing Kim’s penchant for constant power shuffles, the newly appointed No Kwang Chol is the leader’s seventh defense minister since he took power in 2011.
Put simply, nothing substantial has changed here. If Trump wants to get a deal with North Korea he must focus on winning agreement from two individuals: Kim Jong Un and Kim Yong Chol.
