Peter M. Beck: What Is Kim Jong Il Up to Now?
[Mr. Beck is the Council on Foreign Relations-Hitachi research fellow at Keio University in Tokyo.]
North Korea's leaders demonstrated yesterday that they are the masters of brinksmanship, with an artillery barrage on a South Korean island that killed or wounded more than a dozen soldiers and civilians. Even by North Korean standards it was an audacious attack. South Korean civilians had not been targeted in this way since the North blew up a Southern airliner in 1987, killing 115. This was the first artillery attack on the South since the Korean War.
The attack was even more brazen than the March sinking of the South's Cheonan warship, which killed 46 sailors. In that case, the North was "subtle" enough—attacking via a submarine—that Seoul felt compelled to prepare a detailed report proving Pyongyang's guilt. While there is no ambiguity this time about the perpetrator, discerning North Korea's intentions is more difficult.
Pyongyang's latest provocation appears to be an effort to rally the public around the regime, as well as a cry for attention from the Obama administration.
Confronting his own mortality, dictator-for-life Kim Jong Il recently selected three family members and his most trusted general to succeed him when he is no longer able to rule. Little is known about this "Gang of Four." Son Kim Jong Eun can strike as stern a pose as any 27-year-old with lingering baby fat can, but he spent his formative years in peace-loving Switzerland. His uncle, Jang Song Taek, is widely seen as a technocrat who has traveled abroad frequently. Analysts are divided as to whether he is a reformer or hardliner. Even less is known about Jang's wife, Kim Kyong Hui (Kim Jong Il's sister) or the fourth gang member, Vice Marshall Ri Yong Ho.
Kim Jong Il and the Gang of Four know that all-out war would be suicidal, but they have learned over the decades that provocations have few downsides...
Read entire article at WSJ
North Korea's leaders demonstrated yesterday that they are the masters of brinksmanship, with an artillery barrage on a South Korean island that killed or wounded more than a dozen soldiers and civilians. Even by North Korean standards it was an audacious attack. South Korean civilians had not been targeted in this way since the North blew up a Southern airliner in 1987, killing 115. This was the first artillery attack on the South since the Korean War.
The attack was even more brazen than the March sinking of the South's Cheonan warship, which killed 46 sailors. In that case, the North was "subtle" enough—attacking via a submarine—that Seoul felt compelled to prepare a detailed report proving Pyongyang's guilt. While there is no ambiguity this time about the perpetrator, discerning North Korea's intentions is more difficult.
Pyongyang's latest provocation appears to be an effort to rally the public around the regime, as well as a cry for attention from the Obama administration.
Confronting his own mortality, dictator-for-life Kim Jong Il recently selected three family members and his most trusted general to succeed him when he is no longer able to rule. Little is known about this "Gang of Four." Son Kim Jong Eun can strike as stern a pose as any 27-year-old with lingering baby fat can, but he spent his formative years in peace-loving Switzerland. His uncle, Jang Song Taek, is widely seen as a technocrat who has traveled abroad frequently. Analysts are divided as to whether he is a reformer or hardliner. Even less is known about Jang's wife, Kim Kyong Hui (Kim Jong Il's sister) or the fourth gang member, Vice Marshall Ri Yong Ho.
Kim Jong Il and the Gang of Four know that all-out war would be suicidal, but they have learned over the decades that provocations have few downsides...