New York: Ballantine Books, 2020. xvi, 317 pp. (B&W photos, coloured photos, illustrations.) US$28.00, cloth. ISBN 978-1-9848-1972-7.
North Korea has been and remains a challenge for intelligence communities around the world; as one CIA analyst said, “North Korea is the hardest of the hard targets.” But is it really so hard to understand the DPRK? Or could we say that the descriptors Kim Jong-un has earned over the years—crazy, rocket man, irrational, among others—demonstrate our misunderstanding of how the North Koreans and the three generations of the Kim family really work? While more than a few books have been published on North Korean leadership, this book offers an interesting perspective on the leadership of Kim Jung-un from a critical perspective.
Both the title of the book, Becoming Kim Jong Un, and its author, Jung H. Pak, raise high expectations for solving the mystery of Kim Jong-un. One would expect Pak’s years of experience analyzing North Korea in senior positions with the CIA and the DNI (Director of National Intellgience) to give us a full understanding of Kim Jong-un’s logic.
Pak does not claim to write a history of the CIA. But reading her book offers the reader an interesting glimpse of how the CIA analyzes North Korea. A book written by a senior CIA analyst encourages one to read between the lines in an attempt to retrieve hints about signals intelligence (SIGINT) or human intelligence (HUMINT) and about how the agency analyzes and receives information about North Korea and, especially, the leadership. The challenge of the intelligence analyst is not just to know the capabilities of the adversary but to discover his or her intentions: for example, what do the leaders think? In the case of this book, what does Kim Jong-un think about the development of missile and nuclear capabilities? Why did he decide to eliminate all “family” threats? How does he plan to secure the Kim family’s interests? And what were his goals in the Kim-Trump summit?
The first chapters of the book describe Kim Jong-un’s birth, childhood, and coronation. They discuss both the Kim family milieu and his education abroad, including the interesting question of how obtaining a foreign education influences leaders of non-democratic countries such as Kim Jong-un, Bashar al Assad, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, and others. Did the liberal values of this education have any effect on them, in terms of influencing their internal and external political arenas or dictating their manner of ruling, as suggested by Pak?
The next few chapters focus on issues relating to Kim Jong-un’s rule, particularly the ongoing debate between the experts about who actually rules North Korea: is it Kim Jong-un himself or is he controlled by other political and military figures? Pak discusses this issue thoroughly as well as the changes made by Kim Jong-un in the political and military milieus in order to legitimize and strengthen his leadership and eliminate any potential threats.
During Kim Jong-un’s early years in power, North Korea surpassed the number of missile tests conducted by both Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il combined. Kim Jong-un also increased the number of nuclear tests as well as the magnitude of each test. It is important to pay attention not just to the number of tests but also to the variety of missiles that were developed, tested, and later sold to customers around the world. This demonstrates both Kim Jong-un’s commitment to developing independent deterrence capabilities and, as noted by Pak, the failure of the US administrations to prevent North Korea from developing and testing these capabilities and even exporting conventional and non-conventional weapons to Syria, Iran, and other states and non-state actors.
The last part of the book deals with Kim Jong-un’s regime during the Trump administration. Pak also relates the important role played by South Korean President Moon Jae-in in the negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington. Three chapters are devoted to the Kim-Trump summits: the 2018 Singapore summit, the 2019 Hanoi summit, and the DMZ meeting in June 2019. Why did these summits fail to achieve their goals? Was the failure due to misunderstandings on both sides? Was it, as Pak suggests, the “mirror imaging” prism pitfall, i.e., Washington thought that Pyongyang should react according to US standards? Was it the failure of the CIA and other agencies to assess Kim Jong-un’s intentions and goals? Or was it a failure of the leaders on both sides to read the intelligence reports and understand what can be achieved in a summit? Pak answers all these questions in these chapters.
The debate over the failure of the Kim-Trump summits and the correct policy on North Korea over the years will, undoubtedly, continue for many years, with North Korean experts divided between conservatives and liberals, Democrats and Republicans, and advocates and opponents. This book is likely to play an important role in this debate.
Alon Levkowitz
Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan