THE MYSTERY OF NORTH KOREA

Moreover, the experience of the collapse of the Soviet system showed that paradoxically, the most significant benefits of such reforms were enjoyed by individuals from the nomenklatura, that is, the political and economic elite. By the time the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and socialist countries of Eastern Europe faced their most severe financial and political crisis, it was primarily these people (and generally only them) who possessed education, experience, connections, and, most importantly, control over state property. Almost monopolistic access to these crucial social, political, and material resources allowed the former nomenklatura to transform from the infamous ‘partyocrats’ into businessmen and democratic ‘patriotic’ politicians during privatization.

At first glance, one can only wonder why the North Korean leadership did not choose to pursue the path of reforms and openness. In fact, the North Korean leaders’ actions were driven by entirely rational considerations. North Korea remained a divided nation. South Korea had nearly twice the population of North Korea and enjoyed significantly higher living standards. Its gross domestic product (GDP) was approximately fifty times larger than the North’s, with the per capita income being twenty-five times higher. Reforms in China were possible because there was no South China. Of course, there is Taiwan, but it is a small island-state. In the case of North Korea, reforms and openness following the Chinese model would inevitably lead to information about South Korean prosperity seeping into North Korea. Naturally, information about the prosperity of other countries has also penetrated and continues to penetrate into China. However, for the Chinese population, the economic successes of Japan, the United States, or Germany are by no means a reason to dislike the existing regime in China. It is clear to everyone in China that Japan and Germany are foreign states with different natural conditions, histories, and cultures.

For North Korea, things would be completely different. The dissemination of information about the incredible prosperity in South Korea would inevitably prompt the North Korean population to ask two questions. The first is obvious: who is to blame for North Korea's dire situation, especially considering it surpassed South Korea in economic indicators before the Kim family came to power? The second question is: what needs to be done to eliminate the existing differences and achieve the same standard of living as South Korea in the shortest time possible?

The answers to both questions seem quite straightforward. From the perspective of the majority of the population, the responsibility for the decades-long catastrophe would lie with the North Korean leadership in general and the Kim family in particular. The solution to the problem may be the unification of North and South Korea following the German model. In simpler terms, it could mean the takeover of the impoverished North by the affluent South, along with the complete removal of the current North Korean ruling elite from authority. That such a scenario wouldn't sit well with the North Korean ruling class is evident.

Moreover, if this scenario were to unfold anytime soon (which seems improbable), it might not bring favorable outcomes for ordinary citizens either. Undoubtedly, merging with the South under Seoul's governance would significantly enhance living standards in North Korea. Nonetheless, the economic disparity would continue for many years, and North Koreans within the unified nation would inevitably find themselves in the position of second-class citizens. In any case, they are not yet aware of this.

In other words, in the context of a divided country like Korea, a ‘policy of reform and openness’ in the Chinese style would inevitably lead to the dissemination of dangerous and fundamentally subversive knowledge about South Korean prosperity in North Korea. This dissemination could trigger the collapse of the regime and reunification under South Korean control, followed by the ousting of the entire North Korean elite from power. Moreover, under such circumstances, there's a chance that the North Korean elite could be scapegoated, with numerous prominent figures facing accountability for their actual or perceived involvement in the myriad ‘human rights violations’ (to employ a somewhat formal term) that have taken place in North Korea during the reign of the Kim family. Ultimately, the North Korean political elite has nowhere to turn. For a long time, they've strived to build an independent and nationally oriented state, albeit at a high cost borne mainly by the people. Unlike Roosevelt's depiction of Somoza, North Korean leaders have never been anyone's ‘sons of bitches’. This means they won't find refuge elsewhere, and if they do, they'll be betrayed when convenient. Consequently, the North Korean leadership feels like the crew of a submarine. While not everyone may be content with the actions of their commander on this boat, they all understand that individual salvation is impossible, and any significant disagreements could have catastrophic consequences for every member without exception.

Based on this, the North Korean leadership's persistent reluctance to open the country and keep the borders tightly closed, shielding the population from accessing any information about life beyond North Korean borders, is quite understandable. There is nothing paranoid about this caution—on the contrary, it is entirely rational.

Thus, the most critical task facing the North Korean leadership is political survival. It is rightly perceived as synonymous with physical survival. So, what are the main threats facing the North Korean leadership, and how does it attempt to neutralize them? Modern studies of authoritarian regimes show that the vast majority of such regimes face three types of threats: first, the threat of a conspiracy between the elites or coup; second, the threat of a popular uprising; third, the threat of external invasion. Contrary to stereotypes propagated by both Soviet cinema and Hollywood, dictatorships (or, to be more polite and precise, ‘authoritarian regimes’) rarely fall victim to popular uprisings.

The most likely causes of the downfall of such a regime are conspiracies and coups, with instances of regimes being overthrown due to external invasion being rarer. Successful popular uprisings are relatively rare occurrences. Perhaps it's worthwhile to delve into all three potential sources of danger and explore the measures being taken in Pyongyang to tackle these challenges.

North Korea embarked on the development of nuclear weapons in the 1960s. The Soviet Union closely monitored North Korea's nuclear aspirations and took steps to control its nuclear program. As per existing Soviet-North Korean agreements, all fuel rods from the North Korean nuclear reactor (constructed in 1965 with Soviet technical aid) were sent to the USSR for processing, preventing North Koreans from extracting plutonium, one of the components of nuclear warheads.

The 1970s saw a significant acceleration in North Korea's nuclear program, partly influenced by South Korea's nuclear pursuits. Ironically, it was South Korea who initially sparked the nuclear arms race on the Korean Peninsula. In the early 1970s, amid discussions in the United States about withdrawing American troops from Korea after the Vietnam War, South Korea, fearing this outcome, began to actively develop its own nuclear weapons. However, these plans became known in the United States, leading to pressure compelling South Korea to abandon them. Surprisingly, news of South Korea's nuclear ambitions also reached Pyongyang, where it spurred North Korea to intensify its own nuclear weapons program in response.

It hardly seems necessary to delve into all the intricacies of North Korean nuclear scientists’ work. What's crucial to note is the events of 1994, when the United States, South Korea, and several other nations learned of North Korea's possession, or imminent acquisition, of its first nuclear device, leading to the signing of the Geneva Framework Agreement. Under this agreement, North Korea agreed to place all known nuclear facilities on its territory under international control, specifically of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In return, North Korea received generous aid in the form of free fuel oil deliveries. Additionally, a specially created international consortium called the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), primarily funded by the United States, Japan, and South Korea, was tasked with building two light-water reactor units in North Korea. Due to their design, these reactors are not suited for producing large quantities of weapons-grade plutonium.

This agreement remained in effect until 2002, when it was terminated by the United States. The termination came after the US received intelligence suggesting that North Korea, in addition to its frozen plutonium program under the 1994 Agreement, was pursuing a secret uranium program aimed at creating nuclear weapons based on uranium. Initially denying these accusations, North Korea eventually not only acknowledged their validity but also disclosed facilities capable of producing highly enriched uranium for potential use in nuclear devices to foreign experts.

Shortly after the Geneva Agreed Framework was terminated, in 2006 North Korea conducted its first nuclear test. This was followed by a series of tests where North Korean scientists showcased their ability to create nuclear charges based on both plutonium and highly enriched uranium as well as thermonuclear charges.

Concurrently, North Korea pursued the development of nuclear weapons delivery systems. The most significant progress in this area occurred during Kim Jong Un's leadership, which began in December 2011. By 2017, North Korea had successfully launched its first intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), capable in theory of targeting the entire continental United States. Additionally, through the efforts of North Korea's military-industrial complex, an impressive arsenal of nuclear weapons delivery systems gradually became available. These included rail-based missile complexes,iwhich were easy to conceal due to North Korea's terrain and road network long-range cruise missiles, submarines armed with ballistic missiles, and even exotic weapons like nuclear-armed underwater drones.

The motive behind North Korea's development of its nuclear arsenal appears evident. The experiences of the recent decades have solidified the North Korean leadership's long-held belief: they cannot entirely trust promises from major powers or international treaties. A nation that has strained relations with several influential global actors can only feel relatively secure by possessing its own nuclear deterrent.

North Korea was notably influenced by the history of Iraq, where attempts to develop nuclear weapons were thwarted by an Israeli air force strike on an Iraqi research center in 1981. Subsequently, Iraq, failing to acquire nuclear weapons, became the target of a US invasion. This led to the overthrow of its government, and its leader, Saddam Hussein, was captured and executed. The events in Ukraine also made a significant impression on North Korea. As we know, Ukraine relinquished its nuclear weapons under the Budapest Memorandum, which guaranteed, among other things, the inviolability of its borders. The consequences of this are well known to all. However, the most significant lesson for North Korea came from Libya. In Libya, Gaddafi accepted conditions very similar to those that had been regularly offered to Seoul by Washington over the past two decades. Gaddafi agreed to abandon his nuclear weapons program (which, at that time, was far from complete) and surrendered all the equipment used in that program. In exchange, he received the lifting of sanctions and a series of economic concessions.

At first, this agreement worked. However, in 2011, mass anti-government protests began in Libya. While a large part of the population opposed Gaddafi's regime, he still had supporters. Additionally, a significant portion of the Libyan Army, armed with modern heavy weapons, sided with Gaddafi. With air superiority and the support of loyal military units, Gaddafi had a good chance of eventually quelling the uprising. However, these plans were thwarted by the intervention of Western powers, which established ‘no-fly zones’ over Libya. This made it impossible for government supporters to use their air superiority, sealing their failure in the subsequent campaign. For the North Korean leadership, the events in Libya served as a clear lesson, demonstrating once again that the only way to protect oneself from external attacks and foreign intervention in internal crises was to possess nuclear weapons. For nearly two decades, since North Korea's initial nuclear tests in 2006, diplomatic negotiations on the nuclear issue have occurred repeatedly. Usually, the United States and South Korea were involved as partners, but there were also attempts to organize multilateral talks. The most famous of these were the ‘six-party talks’, involving North and South Korea, China, Japan, the United States, and Russia. The formal, stated goal of these talks was the ‘complete, verifiable, and irreversible nuclear disarmament’ of North Korea.

However, these declarations shouldn't be taken seriously. For North Korea, relinquishing nuclear weapons is entirely unacceptable. The North Korean side occasionally uses negotiations either to buy time (as they did in the early years of Donald Trump's presidency) or to gain advantageous economic concessions. As previously mentioned, North Korean leadership holds the belief that possessing nuclear weapons is the sole dependable assurance for the security of both the nation and the regime. This sentiment is encapsulated in the saying ‘It's tough living in a village without a revolver when your neighbor has a machine gun.’

The second potential threat to the regime is the risk of a popular uprising. In North Korea's unique circumstances, this threat is greatly magnified by the existence of its counterpart, South Korea, where the standard of living is vastly superior. Therefore, maintaining political stability in North Korea critically depends on upholding the regime's policy of information isolation, which was initiated by the North Korean authorities in the 1960s. Interestingly, this policy was initially aimed not so much against South Korea, which was not particularly appealing to the average North Korean at the time, but rather against the Soviet Union and its ‘revisionist’ ideology, which had some appeal to many North Koreans. However, over time, the objectives of the isolation policy shifted, and its primary aim became insulating the country from South Korean influence.

North Korea is an exceedingly isolated nation. It's noteworthy that since the late 1960s, owning a receiver with unrestricted tuning, a receiver that can pick up foreign broadcasts, has been a criminal offense in North Korea. Any non-technical foreign literature is routed to a special storage facility where special permission from intelligence services is required for access. No exceptions were made in this regard, not even for publications from China, the USSR, or other socialist countries.

For a long time, private travel abroad for North Koreans was prohibited. However, from 1982 to 1984, after an almost twenty-year hiatus, citizens were granted the right to travel to China to visit their relatives. Opportunities for such travel significantly expanded in the early 2000s, especially since the border with China was practically unguarded until the beginning of the 2010s.

With Kim Jong Un coming to power in 2011, the North Korean government began to actively take measures to maximize border control. Under pressure from North Korea, the Chinese authorities agreed to conduct extensive reinforcement work on their side of the border. By 2013, China had installed barriers along its entire length, added surveillance cameras, increased patrols, and tightened control over entry into the border zone. On their side, from 2011 to 2022, North Koreans also carried out extensive engineering work on the border, which stretches for about 1,400 km. During this period, two lines of wire barriers were erected along the entire length of the border, typically with a control and monitoring strip between them. Moreover, a multitude of motion sensors and surveillance cameras have been deployed on the North Korean side, a feature once exclusive to Chinese border guards. These initiatives have effectively halted movement across the border, encompassing both illegal labor migration and smuggling endeavors.

Generally, Kim Jong Un, who assumed the country's top leadership position in 2011 from his father, Kim Jong Il, prioritizes maintaining the country's isolation. This emphasis may stem from his own youth spent abroad, giving him a clear understanding of the potential dangers posed by the dissemination of uncensored information, particularly about South Korea, to the stability of the nation.

During his tenure, strict controls over computers have been implemented. Despite being a poor country, North Korea has a surprisingly high number of privately owned computers, which are mainly used ones imported from China. According to current regulations, North Korean computers must run a specially modified version of the Linux operating system tailored for information security purposes. This version restricts access to files lacking a specific ‘electronic signature’, which only government agencies can provide. Essentially, computers equipped with this system cannot exchange information using USB or other external drives. Naturally, all computers in the country are registered, and police periodically conduct checks on them.

Another aspect of population control entails aggressively implementing measures to suppress horizontal social ties. In North Korea, the formation of any organization is allowed only if it operates within official structures, subjecting it to government control. Concurrently, there is a strict zero-tolerance policy toward any expressions of anti-government sentiments. However, the criticism of middle and lower-level officials is permitted, but only when it lacks a clear political character. For instance, in North Korea after the year 2000, there were instances of small entrepreneurs protesting against certain decisions of local authorities that infringed on their interests. Often, North Korean authorities responded to these protests quite calmly, sometimes agreeing with the demands of the participants and even making necessary concessions.

A distinctive feature of North Korea's system of political prisoner camps allows for a relatively accurate estimate of the number of people imprisoned for political reasons. Unlike the Soviet Union, North Korea's system of camps for political prisoners exists separately from those for criminal offenders. Analyzing satellite images enables a rough estimate of the number of political prisoners. This number apparently peaked (around 200,000 people) in the final years of Kim Il Sung's rule. Since then, it has significantly decreased, with the current estimate of political prisoners in North Korea standing at around 80,000 people. Despite the notable decrease, the proportion of political prisoners in North Korea's population remains significantly higher than in any other modern country. Given this circumstance, it's understandable why North Koreans tend to be extremely cautious in their actions and expressions. Additionally, the previously described systems of ‘organizational life’ and mutual control implemented through people's groups, known as inminban, play significant roles.

A third threat to authoritarian regimes is the risk of a conspiracy of the elites or a military coup. This threat is perhaps less pronounced in North Korea than in many other countries. The North Korean elite understand very well that any internal conflict, any internal disagreements, could lead to instability, which in turn could provoke the collapse of North Korean statehood and its absorption by the South. In such a scenario, a grim fate awaits everyone, including the supporters of factions that might come to power in the early stages of a conspiracy or coup. In other words, all the North Korean elite are in the same boat, they understand this, and try not to rock it as much as possible.

However, the initial years of Kim Jong Un's leadership witnessed a series of actions targeting the mitigation of elite conspiracy or governmental overthrow risks. Initially, Kim Jong Un implemented repressive campaigns against high-ranking officials of the security forces, including military personnel and leaders of the state security apparatus. Consequently, a notable portion of key figures from the security forces vanished without a trace.

In subsequent publications, not only were their names omitted, but their images were also expunged from group photographs. In this respect, North Korea follows the Soviet model: the depiction of a repressed individual is expunged from all photographs and records whenever possible. Additionally, during the early years of Kim Jong Un's rule, there was an exceptionally frequent turnover of individuals in key positions within the security apparatus. While under his father and grandfather, the average tenure for a minister of defense was approximately ten years, under Kim Jong Un, from 2011 to 2021, this period was reduced to just eleven months.

Removal from office was not always accompanied by repression. However, the primary objective of such artificially induced chaos is quite clear: Kim Jong Un and his advisors aimed to prevent influential generals from forming overly close connections and assembling their own support networks, which could potentially serve as the foundation for a conspiracy or coup.

However, it's worth noting that after 2015–16, the situation among the security forces became much more stable. Apparently, from that point on, Kim Jong Un became less concerned about the threat of conspiracy for some reason.

An additional factor contributing to stability, which began to take effect after 2019–20, is China's position. In the context of prolonged confrontation with the US, China is interested in maintaining the status quo on the Korean Peninsula. Historically, China's leadership has had mixed feelings toward North Korea. On the one hand, Beijing understood that North Korea served as an important buffer zone, which objectively protected major Chinese industrial centers in Manchuria.iand Pyongyang is not very far from Beijing, being just over an hour's flight away On the other hand, China has often been annoyed by various actions taken by North Korea, especially by Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.

However, with the onset of the US–China conflict, all past doubts were pushed to the background. In a situation where American troops are stationed in the southern part of the Korean Peninsula, and South Korea and Japan are becoming increasingly close allies of the US, the value of North Korea as a strategic buffer for China has dramatically increased. Hence, by approximately 2019, the Chinese leadership made a significant strategic move by offering consistent economic aid to North Korea, notably without imposing additional political terms. This aid primarily comprises shipments of liquid fuel,igiven North Korea's lack of oil, relying entirely on imports food supplies, and mineral fertilizers. While these provisions are insufficient to drive substantial economic expansion, they do guarantee the survival of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and its populace, which is a crucial strategic objective for China.

Under these circumstances, the North Korean leadership found itself unexpectedly well-supported. Thus, it started to abandon the ambitious economic reform initiatives that had been successful from 2012 to 2018, during the initial period of Kim Jong Un's leadership.

These reforms were primarily aimed at promoting market relations in the North Korean economy and closely resembled the reforms carried out in China in the 1980s. In many cases, North Koreans directly copied the corresponding Chinese experience, although, of course, they did not openly admit it. Initially, these reforms led to a significant improvement in the country's economic situation. However, they also posed political risks. The issue was that such reforms inevitably strengthened market forces and spurred the development of a new bourgeoisie, which could become quite challenging to control in the long run.

In light of the circumstances that emerged after 2019 and the onset of the US-China conflict with the expectation of substantial future Chinese support, the government under Kim Jong Un decided to gradually reverse market reforms and try to limit the influence of the private sector in the economy. Given the significant role the private sector has played in the DPRK's economy since the year 2000, there are some doubts about the success of these plans. It's more likely that a substantial portion of the North Korean economy will remain effectively private, albeit disguised as state-owned through a system of fictitious registration of private enterprises. However, the North Korean government will still succeed in regressing in some aspects. This policy shift was primarily driven by considerations of domestic political security rather than economic viability. As previously noted, security concerns are paramount from the perspective of the North Korean leadership, outweighing any economic development considerations.

This circumstance is crucial for understanding the entire logic of actions by the North Korean regime. Attempts by foreign states to ‘tempt’ the North Korean regime with brilliant economic prospects have always ended in failure and, as one might suppose, such attempts are doomed to failure in principle. This is not because the North Korean leadership does not want economic development. On the contrary, all those who govern the DPRK would generally like the country's population to live prosperously. However, issues related to maintaining political stability and closely associated issues concerning the preservation of North Korean statehood are of much greater importance to these individuals than the struggle for a few additional percentage points of GDP growth. The North Korean elite understands that, unlike the elite of the former USSR and Eastern Europe, it cannot gain significant economic and political advantages by abandoning socialism. In many ways, this elite likely has no illusions about the effectiveness of the Soviet model of state socialism. However, it has no way out. The system of state socialism provides additional opportunities for controlling society and increases the chances of maintaining stability. After all, a dead man cannot be rich.

When discussing the North Korean elite, we're talking about a rather sizable group—not just hundreds or even thousands, but likely hundreds of thousands. This category includes army officers, particularly those from intelligence services, party officials of all ranks, numerous professors of the Juche philosophy, and the revolutionary history of the Great Leader, not to mention administrators and chief engineers of factories where seventy-year-old Soviet equipment is still in use. In the event of the regime's collapse, these individuals are unlikely to find a place in the system that will succeed it. However, it's quite understandable that they all want to survive and preserve the current regime as its existence guarantees their collective survival. Given these factors, it is probable that they will succeed in retaining power in the country for the foreseeable future. Whether or not external observers agree is a different matter (and much more intricate than it might appear initially), but in any case, external observers wield minimal influence here.