Previous analysis by 38 North documented the rapid progress made on the ELWR in 2011. However, work at the site halted by late December 2011 after completion of the roof for the turbine generator hall (see figure 1). A satellite photo from February 3, 2012 showed no change in the amount of construction at the site (see figure 2). Exactly why the work stopped remains unclear; it may have been due, in part, to the death of Kim Jong Il, but a more likely explanation was that winter weather was approaching.

Figure 1: The EWLR Construction Site at Yongbyon (December 24, 2011)

Image © 2011 DigitalGlobe, Inc.

Figure 2. The ELWR Construction Site at Yongbyon (February 3. 2012)

Image: DigitalGlobe/ISIS.

Construction resumed, probably in late February or early March as demonstrated in a March 25, 2012 satellite photo showing new activity at the site and the beginning of work on the cylindrical portion of the reactor containment building (see figure 3).

Figure 3: Construction Resumes at the ELWR Construction Site at Yongbyon (March 25, 2012)

Image © 2012 DigitalGlobe, Inc.

Based on the April 30 photo, it appears that the North may now be nearing completion of the reactor containment building (see figure 4). Steel rebar and concrete have been added to the cylindrical portion of the building that now appears higher than in previous photos. Additional work has been done on portions of the building’s roof adjacent to that area. There is also stepped-up activity on the ground likely related to renewed construction. The domed roof can still be seen in the same location as in previous satellite photos—in the area where the cylindrical sections have been assembled—ready for installation.

Figure 4: Further Buildup of the Reactor Containment Building (April 30, 2012)

Image © 2012 GeoEye.

The next major step in the construction of this facility will be the loading of the heavy components, such as the pressure vessel, steam generator, and pressurizer, likely through the cylindrical opening in the roof of the reactor containment building. Exactly when that process will begin is unclear; it depends on the availability of the heavy components. Recently, the North Koreans stated that those components were being manufactured parallel to the construction of the reactor buildings. The loading process could last 6-12 months.

North Korea’s plan for installing the reactor’s turbine generator remains unclear. The hall that will house the generators was completed in December 2011, but there is no evidence that the equipment was installed inside the building before the roof was finished. While the North Koreans may intend to move the generator into the building through a large door, it is difficult to spot such an opening through satellite photos.

Still further work—such as installing electronics in the control room and producing fuel assemblies—will need to be completed before the reactor is operational. That may take another 1-2 years after loading the heavy components. In short, the facility may not begin operating until 2014-2015.

Figure 5: 3D Model of the ELWR at Yongbyon

To navigate the model using a scroll wheel mouse: 1. Once loaded, click anywhere in the window 2. Slide scroll wheel to zoom in or out 3. Click and hold scroll wheel button to orbit 4. Click and hold left mouse to pan sideways 5. Click on icons for dimension information. Modeling done by Tamara Patton, Graduate Research Assistant at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

Pyongyang’s construction of an ELWR—which the North Koreans have indicated is the prototype for additional reactors—as well as a uranium enrichment facility at Yongbyon is an important indication of the North’s intention to move forward with the expansion of its nuclear weapons stockpile in the future. The uranium enrichment program is intended to produce fuel for the reactor and fissile material for its nuclear weapons. Moreover, as Olli Heinonen, the former Deputy Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency recently argued, the ELWR, once operational, could also produce new plutonium—12 kilograms or a little more than one bomb per year—for Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons stockpile. The combination of these two efforts could allow the North to continue expansion of its stockpile well into the future.

Until the death of Kim Jong Il in December 2011, the big question affecting nearly every aspect of North Korean affairs—domestic or international—was who would be his successor. Now that this issue has been resolved by the selection and promotion of Kim Jong Un, the focus has shifted to the nature and sustainability of the new leadership. The four mega-events in April 2012 were supposed to provide insights: a Worker’s Party Conference, a session of the Supreme People’s Assembly, a missile/rocket/satellite launch, and the long-prepared celebrations of Eternal President Kim Il Sung’s centenary birthday. We could indeed observe dramatic changes, particularly in the DPRK’s ideology—a field that Kim Jong Il in 1995 described as the key frontier in the defense of socialism (Korean style).

This article is based on my personal observations during a visit to North Korea from April 10-16, 2012, as well as official DPRK material, and addresses the question: Are recent ideological changes just a regular progression in a linear, continuous development, or do they mark a major disruption?

New Developments in Ideology

It did not take long to notice the first of these seemingly dramatic changes when I arrived at the Sunan Airport in Pyongyang. I am not talking about the new terminal(s) or the masses of foreigners who flooded into the hopelessly overwhelmed country. Rather, it was the badges worn by North Koreans that caught my attention. These badges portraying a smiling Kim Il Sung have long been a subject of curiosity and, at times, ridicule by foreigners. Questions about their shape and size (do specific badges indicate importance?), rules for wearing (do they even put them on their swimsuits?), and availability (they can’t be bought, they can only be bestowed upon you) have been the subject of many tourist conversations, in particular over beer in the evening. But for someone like me who has been to North Korea frequently since 1991, I hardly notice the badges anymore. Neither do the North Koreans. For decades, the badges have been a part of the system’s iconography, just like the various Kim Il Sung statues in Pyongyang and across the country.

Figure 1: North Korea’s New Leader Badge

(Photo © Rudiger Frank)

And now this: an unusually large badge with not just one, but two faces! Father Kim Il Sung and son Kim Jong Il, happily united against the background of a dynamically flying red flag. This theme—father and son replacing what used to be reserved for Kim Il Sung only—repeated itself on numerous occasions throughout my journey. Among the most widely noticed examples were the two statues on Mansudae Hill in Pyongyang, unveiled in a grand ceremony on April 13.

Figure 2: Mansudae Hill in 2010 (left) and 2012 (right)

(Photos © Rudiger Frank)

In principle, this is nothing new. For years, Kimilsungia and Kimjongilia have been shown together. Even during my first visit in 1991, the images of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il hung next to each other in every house and apartment. On numerous murals across the country, the two leaders have been seen, though often in the form below, with Kim Il Sung in a more senior position. In the past years, Kim Jong Il’s image was progressively upgraded, and he was often displayed as being on par with his father. But a few key realms, like statues and badges, were left untouched.

Figure 3: Propaganda Artwork in Pyongyang

(Photo © Rudiger Frank)

In April 2012, I noted two new trends. The posthumous upgrading of Kim Jong Il’s position was to be expected; but what seems to be a subsequent downgrading of Kim Il Sung raises major questions.

Merger or Replacement?

In 2008, I wrote that Kim Jong Il would be made an “Eternal” leader after his death. In April 2012, he indeed received the titles of Eternal Secretary General of the Party and of Eternal Chairman of the National Defense Committee. This can be easily understood from the perspective of North Korea’s leader-centered ideology. Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il are now being merged into one entity from which legitimacy is derived. Christianity and Islam have each done something very similar, and it has worked. Enshrining the two leaders could provide a lasting ideological basis for a new North Korea forever with a worldlier, if not collective leadership. The latter seems to be in the making, with individuals like Choe Ryong Hae figuring prominently and self-confidently in the DPRK media.

We have noted before that Kim Jong Il did not let himself be promoted as intensely as his father had done during his lifetime. He knew that his father’s legacy was a powerful and reliable source of legitimacy; replacing him would harm this towering image. But after his death in December 2011, we observed a sudden reversal of that strategy. Kim Jong Un needed to generate his own legitimacy, and this included more intense promotion of his father.

However, to my great surprise, my impression is that this display of filial piety is happening at the expense of Kim Il Sung. It is too early to be absolutely certain; we have seen trial and error politics in North Korea before. The new badges provide some interesting insights into the related confusion that seems to be prevalent among the people of North Korea.

There are now four basic versions of the badge: 1) the old one with just Kim Il Sung; 2) the new one with Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il together; 3) an old one with Kim Il Sung worn with a new one with Kim Jong Il; and 4) a new one with Kim Jong Il, without any image of Kim Il Sung (see figure 4). The latter were issued after December 19, 2011, and offer the most striking insight into the ranking of the two deceased leaders. In terms of scenario 3 (pictured lower right), wearing a Kim Jong Il badge in addition to one of Kim Il Sung has no surprising message, but not wearing a Kim Il Sung badge at all (lower left), that would have been unthinkable until now. Have both leaders already been successfully merged together so that they are regarded as one entity rather than as two separate figures? I find this hard to believe.

Figure 4: Variations of the New Leader Badges

(Photos © Rudiger Frank)

 Note that the photos in figure 4 were taken during the same few days in April 2012—meaning these four versions currently coexist. Moreover, according to my own estimate, among the slogans seen in April both in Pyongyang and in the countryside all the way down to Kaesong, roughly 40% praised Kim Jong Il, 20% praised Kim Il Sung, 10% praised Kim Jong Un, and the rest referred to the Party or political goals such as production increases or self-defense. Kim Jong Il was clearly mentioned more frequently than his father; this was particularly remarkable as it happened during the festivities on the occasion of Kim Il Sung’s 100th birthday. On April 19, the state news agency KCNA quoted Kim Jong Un as stressing, “The WPK [Workers’ Party of Korea] is the party of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. The guiding idea of the WPK is the great Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism.” What used to be Kim Il Sung’s country is now Kim-Il-Sung-and-Kim-Jong-Il’s country. That does not just sound awkward; it actually is. Merging the two leaders in a way that each of them is assigned a special task would be one thing; but merging them in a way that would weaken Kim Il Sung’s position is a much more far-reaching step.

Potential Effects

Whether you interpret the above as a major disruption or just a minor cosmetic issue depends, of course, on your understanding of the North Korean system. If you see it as a monarchy or another ordinary form of dictatorship, then all that counts is a show of loyalty to the leader. A Kim Jong Il badge is as good as a Kim Il Sung badge, slogan, or image. They symbolize the system, not the man.

However, there is another interpretation. Having observed the remarkable resilience of the North Korean system despite: 1) severe economic hardships and obvious underperformance; 2) substantial external pressure and the ideological shock of the post-1990 collapse of socialism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe; and 3) the shining example of successful reform and openness in China, one wonders how it has been possible for the regime to survive. Lack of information and a tough system of surveillance and repression are the standard answers but they do not seem to be sufficient. Similar features have existed elsewhere but were, in the end, unable to prevent implosion. I am not alone in arguing that what makes North Korea’s system so sustainable is its ideology: a clever combination of defensive ultra-nationalism, a simplified version of socialism, and some religious elements. Brian Myers would add racism to this list. Together, they form a belief system that could be classified as dispositional—that is, without the need to be actively proven again and again. Once accepted, it becomes unchallengeable. Institutional economists like Oliver Williamson talk about social embeddedness: rules on this level are taken as a given.

To be sure, such a status is difficult to achieve and therefore highly valuable. It takes a long time to be built and for its sustainability needs symbols and rituals that are replicated and performed again and again. Importantly, there is little room for flexibility: in order to turn a process into a ritual and an image into an icon, stability and consistency are key strategies.

Now imagine you go to church next Sunday and the crucifix with Jesus has been moved over to make room for an additional sculpture of, say, St. Peter. Your brain would probably understand; your heart would not. This is how, I think, Pyongyangites feel when they drive or walk by Mansudae Hill. For decades, the largest Kim Il Sung monument in their country was one of the landmarks of the DPRK. It had an almost holy status. This is where couples would take their wedding pictures, young pioneers would take their oaths, visitors from the countryside and foreign delegations would lay flowers and “pay a silent tribute,” as official guide-speak would have it. Now the central ritual place of the country has been modified—or tainted, I would say. The very statue of Kim Il Sung has been moved aside (and adjusted—glasses and a smile were added) like an old piece of furniture and supplemented by a statue of his son, who by no means has the same reputation as his father, the liberator from the Japanese oppression, the founder of the Party, the Army, and the country, and victorious fighter in the “Fatherland Liberation War against the US aggressors.”

So far, there are dozens of Kim Il Sung statues left in the city and throughout the country. Will these, too, be updated? The sheer amount of bronze needed for that endeavor aside, certain questions arise: Will the North Korean people truly embrace the new version of leadership ideology? Has North Korea’s ideology been improved and made more sustainable or has it been ruined? Could it be that Kim Jong Un, despite growing up in North Korea (by no means under the same conditions as everyday citizens), lacks an understanding of how his own system functions? Is his leadership style such that no advisor dares to point out what I regard as a dramatic mistake? Or is my interpretation of North Korea wrong and this is just another ordinary dictatorship?

Remarkably, no matter how you answer this question, the implications remain the same. If North Koreans do not care about the above noted changes to the icons of their ideology, then they are as pragmatic as their socialist brothers and sisters in Eastern Europe were. They pay lip service when asked to, and otherwise focus on getting on with their lives. This would mean that North Korea is not protected by a powerful ideology, but rather by a crumbling information monopoly and a huge repression apparatus. The ideological power of the regime would be very low already, and the state would only be held together by a mix of complacency and fear.

If, on the other hand, North Koreans do care about ideology, and if this is the reason why the system has remained so stable in the past two decades despite all challenges, then we might witness the end of that model right now. Who knows, perhaps sometime in the future, North Koreans might tell us that April 2012 was the time when they lost their belief and never found it again. The day has come closer when the leaders in Pyongyang must decide: muddle through and wait for an implosion a la Europe, or embrace reforms and transform their system as the Chinese did.

In the meantime, here is what we know:

North Koreans called this launcher the Unha-3 (Korean for “Galaxy-3”). Whereas US officials referred to it as a Taepodong-2 missile, since it appeared to be a derivative of a missile US intelligence first saw near the Korean city of Taepodong in early 1994.

North Korea said the three-stage rocket was intended to launch a small (100-kilogram) satellite, the Kwangmyongsong-3, into polar orbit. The satellite reportedly carried a camera to send back photographs of the earth, but the main goal was simply to try to place it into orbit and gain experience operating and communicating with it.

Photographs of the Unha-3 show that it was very similar to the Unha-2 that North Korea used in its failed April 2009 satellite launch. One noticeable difference is that it appears the Unha-3 carried more fuel in its third stage. This was to be expected, since the Unha-3 was launched from the new Sohae Satellite Launching Station (commonly referred to as “Tongchang-ri”) on the west coast to the south, rather than from the Tonghae Satellite Launching Ground (“Musudan-ri”) on the east coast to the east (as the Unha-2 was), to avoid flying over Japan early in flight (see figure 1). This change in flight path is significant because rockets launched east gain speed naturally from the rotation of the earth. Therefore, the extra fuel aboard the Unha-3 was needed to compensate for this difference when fired south.

Figure 1: Comparison of Unha-2 (2009) and Unha-3 (2012) Flight Paths

The Unha-3 launch took place on Friday, April 13, 2012 at 7:39 am Korean Standard Time (KST) (Thursday at 6:39 pm EDT) and failed shortly thereafter, with the rocket splashing down after traveling less than 400 km.

What May Have Happened

The engines of the first two stages of this rocket burn for about two minutes each, so knowing the exact time at which the failure occurred can help us understand which stages were involved and may give clues as to the cause. As of now, this information has not been released. As an alternative, we can try to glean this information from the reported splashdown zones.

From reports in the past three weeks, the two most credible splashdown locations are these:

A.  In a statement shortly following the launch, an official US report gave the splashdown point as 165 km west of Seoul. In particular, North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and US Northern Command stated that: “Initial indications are that the first stage of the missile fell into the sea 165 km west of Seoul, South Korea. The remaining stages were assessed to have failed and no debris fell on land. At no time were the missile or the resultant debris a threat.” This location would be roughly 300 km from the launch site.

B.  However, South Korean reports have said that the splashdown occurred 200 km west of the South Korean city of Gunsan. This location would be about 400 km from the launch site and just short of the intended splashdown zone for the first stage announced by North Korea before the launch.

Based on these two locations, we can conclude several things:

1. Several media have reported that sensors had detected an abnormal “flare” around the rocket at 81 seconds after launch. However, whatever happened at that point, which is unclear from the information publicly available, the rocket must have continued accelerating well past that point. If the engines had stopped at 81 seconds, then the debris would have fallen very close to the launch site—within 100 km—and therefore well short of either points A or B.
2. If the stages fell at point A, that is consistent with the first stage burning roughly as intended for about 104 seconds. In this case, the failure would have occurred during the operation of the first stage and before staging took place. If it failed at that point, all three stages would have fallen into the Yellow Sea about 300 km from the launch site after reaching a maximum altitude of about 120 km, as some reports have stated. Atmospheric forces as the rocket fell would have broken it into pieces.
3. It is also possible that problems with the first stage could have caused the engines to burn with less than the intended thrust, so that the first stage could have burned to completion but not gone as far as was expected. If the staging process did not work correctly, all three stages could have fallen around point A.
4. If instead the stages fell at point B, that would suggest that the first stage worked essentially as intended, but that ignition and separation of the second stage did not occur properly so that it fell with first stage into the sea at this location. A study by Chang Young Keun, a professor at Korea Aerospace University, argued that staging was the problem. However, his analysis reportedly assumes a 10-second delay between first-stage burnout and second-stage ignition, which is unlikely for technical reasons and therefore raises questions about his analysis.

It is also possible that relatively large objects fell at both points A and B. In this case:

1. One possible scenario is that a large object fell off the rocket about 104 seconds after launch, which would have splashed down at point A, while the rest of the rocket continued to burn. A staging failure could have then caused the rest of the rocket to fall at point B. Some reports suggest that either the shroud covering the front sections of the launcher, or even the third stage, may have broken off during first stage burn. However, it is not clear what might have caused this; one suggestion is that it resulted from the rocket passing Mach 1 or experiencing peak atmospheric forces (“Max Q”), but those things generally happen much earlier in flight.
2. A second possibility is that the first stage burned to completion, but with low thrust, and fell at point A, and that the second stage ignited and burned briefly before failing, which carried it to point B. This option assumes that the staging was successful. If this was the case, it means there would have been problems with both of the first two stages.

It is also possible that the launch was aborted by the command center before mechanical failure could fully set in. North Korea reportedly announced prior to the launch that the rocket was equipped with a flight termination system that would allow operators to shut down the engines manually if the ground station detected a problem. It is not clear whether this is the case. However, it is possible that if, as some sources have suggested, the first stage burned to completion but there was a problem with staging, that the North may have aborted the flight at that point.

What Would Help to Understand the Launch Failure

Four pieces of information that would help pin down what may have happened are:

1. Exactly how long after launch did the failure take place? This would help clarify whether the failure was during the operation of the first stage or involved the staging process and the second stage.
2. Where did the rocket debris splash down, and what splashed down at those points? Knowing, for example, whether the first stage traveled 300 or 400 km, or whether any part of the rocket traveled 400 km, would shed light on what actually malfunctioned.
3. Were there any irregularities in the path of the rocket or the operation of the engines while the engines were burning? The type of abnormality observed may help identify the cause of the problem. For example, if the launcher was seen to be deviating from the intended trajectory, it is possible that it was destroyed intentionally.
4. Was there an explosion that destroyed the rocket, or did it simply lose power?

What North Korea May Have Learned from the Launch

North Korea clearly did not learn anything about operating a satellite from this launch, since it did not succeed in placing the Kwangmyongsong-3 into orbit. Moreover, after several attempts, it still has not learned much about using the third stage to launch a satellite into orbit. The closest it has gotten to achieving this was its 1998 launch, when the third stage ignited and separated, but apparently then became unstable and broke apart.

Most countries launching rockets put sensors on all the major systems that constantly send back information about the status of the rocket during launch. If something goes wrong, sorting through this data can help experts determine what happened, like looking at an airplane’s black box. We don’t know how much “telemetry,” as this is called, the Unha-3 was designed to send back. Without it, Pyongyang would have little chance of understanding in detail what went wrong.

However, assuming the Unha-3 was sending at least some telemetry, how much could the North Koreans have learned? The first two stages apparently worked in the 2009 launch, suggesting that the rocket’s systems work in principle, but have reliability problems. The telemetry from the Unha-3 may tell them which system failed this time, and might give them enough information to reduce the likelihood of it happening again to that particular system. But the failure happened so early in flight that they would have gotten little or no information about the performance of several key systems in the upper stages.

On the other hand, it is worth keeping in mind that having a string of failures is not unusual for countries developing a launch capability, so it is difficult to draw strong conclusions from this failure about the overall state of North Korea’s rocket development program. For example, both of South Korea’s attempts (in 2009 and 2010) to launch a satellite failed, and the first stage of its launcher is built by Russia, which has a lot of experience with this technology.

However, North Korea’s successive failures coupled with other facts, like the lack of flight testing and questions about how reliant North Korea’s program is on foreign technology, does suggest a program that is less advanced than is widely assumed.

North Korea’s unveiling of a new long-range missile in its April 15 parade, designated the KN-08 by Western experts, has caused a great deal of speculation. Some analysts have even concluded that the weapons on display were not real.[1] The paraded missiles are certainly not weapons ready for launching. But I believe they are probably part of a developmental process that will culminate in either a new North Korean intermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM) or, depending on the weight of its warhead, an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Moreover, the missile’s transporter-erector-launcher (TEL), probably manufactured in China in 2010, was purchased and extensively modified specifically for the new missile, not just for show.

The KN-08 Missile

The big surprise coming out of the centennial parade was the display of six road mobile missiles, designated the KN-08. These missiles were unlike any of the DPRK’s three other mobile ballistic missile systems. Moreover, they did not resemble the recently launched Unha rocket or the reported large rocket seen at a North Korean research and development facility a week earlier.

The April 15 parade was a good opportunity not only to observe the new missile, but also to gain accurate measurements of its dimensions, critical to any overall analysis. Aside from photos of the new weapon taken by the Western media (figure 1), the parade allowed the missiles and their TELs to be observed by commercial satellite photography (figure 2). While the camouflage paint on the

KN-08 missiles makes it difficult to measure the missile’s diameter, the dimensions of the TEL, along with the ground photos of the missile, can be used to get a fairly accurate assessment.

Figure 1. The KN-08 missile displayed in the parade.

(Photo: Reuters/KCNA)

Figure 2.  KN-08 and Musudan missiles on the parade route prior to entry into Kim Il Sung Square.

Note, the camouflage paint on the KN-08 missiles and TELs compared with the white painted Musudan missiles. (Image © 2012 DigitalGlobe, Inc.)

Based on ground photography and the satellite image, the measurements of the new missiles dimensions are as follows:

While some have concluded that the KN-08 missiles that were on display were “mock-ups,” my conclusion is that they are instead, part of a developmental process intended to produce operational weapons using proven high-energy liquid fueled SS-N-6 technology obtained from Russia in the late 1990s.

My conclusions are based on the following observations:

• The first stage is approximately the same length and diameter as North Korea’s Musudan (BM-25) rocket (minus the warhead), first revealed to the West in October 2010 during celebrations for the 65th anniversary of the Korean Workers’ Party. The DPRK is believed to have modified the SS-N-6, by adding about one meter to the fuel and oxidizer tanks in order to increase the Musudan’s range. This increased the missile’s length to 9.65 meters, which is close to the measured length of the first stage of the KN-08.

• The KN-08’s second stage is a bit of a mystery. No rocket engine that measures 4.5 meters long and 1.5 meters in diameter has been identified in the DPRK to date. However, the fact that the second stage is 1.5 meters in diameter and appears to use liquid fuel means that the KN-08 engine may also have been derived from the SS-N-6.

• The missile’s third stage is 1.25 meters in diameter and 2.75 meters in length, very close to the size of the Unha rocket’s third stage that uses the vernier engines from the SS-N-6. While the North has not had much success testing this stage, a similar stage for the Iranian Safir Space Launch Vehicle has worked three times to date.

While some analysts have also concluded that the missile’s warhead—about 2.5 meters long and tapered—is fake, it actually resembles that found on the Nodong-A medium range missile already fielded by the North. Even if it is not an operational weapon, the real warhead will likely be about the same length and diameter. This conclusion is based on the dimensions and shape of the transporter’s erection arms and its front brush guard. The erection arms run parallel with the missile’s sides and are attached to the clamp that holds the missile in place when traveling. The brush guard provides protection to the warhead during off-road operations and outlines its shape.

There are other considerations that point to the displayed missiles as part of a process to develop a new weapon. For example, the serial numbers painted on the side of each missile indicate that the missiles come from two production series. The small differences in those missiles indicate that flaws may have been discovered and improvements made, indicating an ongoing process of development. Also, the KN-08 TEL was real and clearly specifically designed for this missile, representing a significant investment of time, effort, and money. Finally, while analysts who believe the missile was fake have argued that the KN-08, if liquid fueled, would not suitable for a land mobile launcher, they neglect the fact that the North already has an operational liquid fueled missile: the Nodong-B, which is 17 meters long, only a few meters shorter than the KN-08.

In summary, the KN-08 missiles observed in the April 15th parade may, in fact, be part of a developmental process for fielding a new three stage liquid fueled missile with a longer-range than the Musudan. Whether it will eventually be able to achieve the 10,000 km range of an ICBM is to be seen. That will depend, not just on further developments in DPRK missile technology, but also on the weight of the warhead that it will carry and, particular, whether or not the North will be able to reduce that weight through miniaturization of a nuclear payload.

The KN-08 TEL

The KN-08’s TEL is an 8 axle short cab version of the Chinese WS 51200 vehicle, probably purchased about the time it was first advertized in 2010, and produced by the Hubei Sanjiang Space Wanshan Special Vehicle Co. Ltd. Interestingly, the company also controls a joint venture with the Minsk Plant of Wheeled Carriers in Belarus, which produces the MAZ series of heavy vehicles. The Chinese vehicle has a lot in common with that vehicle, used as the TEL for a Russian ICBM, the SS-27 Topal, first deployed in 2006.

The WS 51200, the largest vehicle of its type produced in China, has yet to appear as a TEL for a Chinese missile. The vehicle comes in two versions—identified as short and long cabs—that have slightly different wheel base patterns. The DPRK uses the short cab version for the KN-08.[2]

The following table gives the relevant data for the WS 51200 and for comparison its counterpart that is used as the basis for the Russian ICBM.

With a load weight of 122 tons, this vehicle is oversized for the KN-08 missile and the erection and launching equipment, which are estimated to weigh only 45 to 50 tons. It is unknown how many of these vehicles the DPRK purchased beyond the six shown in the parade.

Figure 3.  Advertisement for the WS 51200 super heavy load vehicle.

Conversion of this vehicle into a missile TEL required extensive modifications that probably were undertaken by the DPRK after purchase, which North Korea has done in the past. For example, the North acquired an unknown number of demilitarized Soviet SS-20 IRBM TELs from Belarus/Russia for use with the Musudan in the early 2000s. The North Koreans installed their own erection and launching equipment, although it is obvious the vehicle was not a perfect fit. The Musudan’s 12 meter length only takes up about three quarters of the 17 meter TEL. Plus the missile is offset 0.6 meters to the passenger side of the centerline, probably to accommodate the erection hydraulics. With the bare bones Chinese vehicle acquired for the KN-08, the DPRK was able to design equipment to better fit the new missile system, which they did.

The TEL shown in figure 4 was designed to carry a missile of the KN-08’s size and shape.  The figure shows some of the larger additions needed to launch the KN-08 missile. By far, the biggest modification is the installation of the hydraulics required to raise and lower the weapon. The two visible parts of this equipment are the arms that run alongside the missile (the rear arrow) and the holding down mechanism shown in the red box on the top of the missile. At the end of the missile and attached to these arms is the launch platform (not shown). This entire system raises the missile to the vertical position where it rests vertically on the launch platform, then releases the missile and retracts back on the vehicle in a horizontal position.

There are a number of other modifications as well. For example, the storage boxes on both sides of the vehicle (the long red rectangular box in the picture) will probably be used during transit to store equipment needed to support the troops, as well as to operate and maintain the system when it is deployed. A communications mount has been added on the passenger side roof of the cab for an antenna that will provide command and control of the missile system. Finally, there are almost certainly other subsystems not visible in the ground photos that had to be added to the vehicle to turn it into a mobile missile launcher.

Figure 4.  Side view of the KN-08 TEL showing some of the modifications required converting the WS 51200 into TEL.

(Photo: AP)

In summary, North Korea’s purchase and modification of these vehicles to serve as TELs for the KN-08 indicates a significant commitment of resources that would not have been made if the program was fake. That reality, combined with analysis of the missile itself—as well as available information on other North Korean rocket programs based on the former Soviet SS-N-6—leads me to conclude that the KN-08 is intended to serve as the basis for a future intermediate or intercontinental range missile that could carry a nuclear warhead.

[2] Analysis by Frank Pabian, Stanford University, Center International Studies and Cooperation, April 23, 2012.

From both perspectives of being “strong” and “prosperous,” these moves by the new leadership were a gamble. Rhetoric that is not matched by visible accomplishments will reinforce perceptions of regime weakness and increase the risk of push-back from both domestic and international stakeholders. Indeed, the highly public failure of the missile launch was deeply embarrassing and has raised the ante for demonstrating military strength and competency through a possible nuclear test or provocation toward South Korea.

On the other hand, the relatively mild response to the failed launch, coupled with the recently announced determination to seek an economic development strategy “on a scientific and realistic basis” under reinvigorated Cabinet leadership,[1] could yield significant upside benefits of legitimacy for the new regime as well as tangible economic achievements. In this context, a path of deepening isolation and especially China’s potential responses to any further North Korean military provocations could have negative ramifications for the newly raised economic expectations. With so much at stake, the basic question is: Will the gamble on attracting significant foreign investment into the Special Economic Zones on the Chinese border and integrating this into a new economic development strategy succeed or fail?

Since the Rason Special Economic Zone was established in 1993, laws governing its status have been amended six times.[2] These amendments represent successive efforts to improve the incentives for foreign investors and traders in light of a disappointing history of realized investment, despite high expectations on North Korea’s part. This learning curve seems to be paying off at last, as both China and Russia have made significant infrastructure investments in road, rail and port facilities to take advantage of Rason’s ports, and cross-border transshipment has been rising[3].

The latest revision of the Rason law as well as the first law governing the Hwanggumpyong and Wihwa Islands Special Economic Zone that was established last year, were approved by the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly on December 3, 2011, shortly before Chairman Kim Jong Il’s death. Initial Chinese reaction to the passing of these laws was lukewarm, as further improvements were considered desirable. The publication of the laws on March 17, nevertheless, signifies continuity of the North Korean strategy to attract foreign investment and promote trade in these special economic zones, which is consistent with statements made during the early power succession period that Kim Jong Il’s economic policies would continue under Kim Jong Un.[4] This continuity is not surprising, as Jang Song Thaek, Kim Jong Il’s brother in law, serving as the most senior North Korean representative in the joint committee with China that oversees the development of these two special economic zones, is viewed as an increasingly influential member of the inner circle supporting the transition to Kim Jong Un’s leadership.

Along with the consolidation of Jang Song Thaek’s influence on economic policy directions in the new regime line up, the announcements made at the mid-April meetings of the Korean Worker’s Party and Supreme People’s Assembly suggesting a leading role for the Cabinet in guiding a unified economic development strategy, along with appointments of new high level economic officials in the Party and Cabinet, are harbingers of new policy and organizational initiatives in the months ahead. Particularly noteworthy is the expected merger of the independent Taepung Investment Group with the Cabinet Joint Venture Investment Committee. Streamlining investment promotion and approval authorities in conjunction with implementing the new foreign investment laws could make an important difference in getting deals done by reducing competition between different parts of the North Korean system and giving investors a clear understanding of their counterpart relationships in the new set up.

The two laws have many common clauses, which demonstrate an effort to establish coherence in the policies that are being applied along the Chinese border. There are also some distinct differences, mainly reflecting varied expectations of the types of economic activity that will take place in these two significantly different geographical areas. Specifically, the Rason law aims to develop the zone “into an area of international transit, transport, trade, investment, financing, tourism and service,” and gives priority to high tech industry, international logistics business, equipment manufacturing, primary processing industry, light industry, service business and modern agriculture. The Hwanggumpyong and Wihwa Island law aims to contribute to “expanding the promoting [of] external economic cooperation and exchange,” and gives priority to information technology, light industry, agriculture, commerce and tourism. Rason’s geographic isolation from the rest of North Korea and the attractiveness of its port access underscore the vision for this area as mainly geared toward exports and servicing the interests of China and Russia. While backward linkages to the North Korean economy are permitted, the likelihood of any significant integration apart from mining is small, and the risk for contagion of liberalized market principles in the management of the zone is quite limited. The Hwanggumpyong and Wihwa Island zone on the other hand is situated next to the dynamic Chinese Dandong region and is close to the corridor that most actively links Pyongyang and southern areas of North Korea economically to China. Once the necessary infrastructure is in place in this zone, the potential for expanding backward linkages to the North Korean economy is quite good, both in supply of inputs for production or services in the zone and in producing goods in the zone for sale in North Korean markets. The potential for liberalized market contagion is thus also much greater, and how North Korea handles this risk as the zone develops will be instructive to watch.

A border officer talks with tourists at the border between China and North Korea in Rason on August 29, 2011. (Photo: Carlos Barria/Reuters)

Three features of these laws are particularly noteworthy. One is that they provide incentives and protections that go a long way to addressing risk concerns of investors. Second, they permit investment and trade with foreign countries, not limited to China and Russia, and explicitly mention the right of Koreans residing outside of North Korea to do business in the zones. Third, the administrative apparatus for approvals and management of the zones is described in considerable detail, which indicates close attention to practical issues that are important for investors in implementing the laws.

The incentives and protections for investors include:

• Land use and transfer rights for up to 50 years;
• Property rights for buildings;
• Managerial discretion in business operations, including production, hiring and wage setting, sales and pricing;
• Regard to international practices and standards;
• Access to markets and financial services in various currencies;
• Legal protection of economic and personal safety rights;
• Attractive tax provisions;
• Preferential tariffs and customs duties; and
• Dispute resolution by four methods: settlement, mediation, arbitration, and courts.

North Korea does not have a good reputation in honoring contracts, and surveys of Chinese investors and traders with North Korea have documented both the risks they face and mitigation strategies that have been adopted by those choosing to invest and trade.[5] Whether the new rules will fundamentally alter the culture of doing business with North Korea will be the test not only of the adequacy of these laws, but also the intentions and ability of North Koreans to overcome their reputation as exploiters and cheaters. Recent developments in Rason in realized infrastructure investments suggest that the tide may, in fact, be turning on this issue.

The second notable feature of the new laws is the opening of the special economic zones to countries other than China and Russia. This not only raises the expectation that North Korea will honor genuine international standards and practices, but also the prospect of eventual Japanese involvement in the Rason zone and South Korean investment in both zones, when transport and energy infrastructure are in place and political conditions permit. Early discussions of a possible China-South Korea free trade agreement are already addressing this possibility. Involvement of Japan and South Korea in the special economic zones would be a significant indicator of the potential for pursuing regional economic integration, not just cross-border economic cooperation.

The detailed delineation of the management of the zones in the new laws includes a clear articulation of principles to be followed as well as the roles and responsibilities of the central guidance authority for special economic zones, local People’s Committees, and management committees established for the zones. This level of detail and the parallelism that has been adopted in the arrangements for management of the two zones represents a significant advancement over previous versions of the law governing Rason. It also reflects a high level decision to strengthen the underlying institutions needed for successfully attracting foreign investment and for implementing the new laws effectively. Certainly these provisions strengthen the credibility of the new laws from the perspective of potential investors. Even so, doubts will remain about North Korean willingness and ability to abide by their own new rules until tested by experience. The stakes are high because failure to do so will be very visible to all concerned and will undermine the credibility—and perhaps perceived legitimacy—of the regime in Pyongyang.

The laws established for the two special economic zones on the Chinese border also represent a marked departure from the model of economic cooperation that is in place in Kaesong on the border with South Korea. Noteworthy differences are the possibility for various business models in the new economic zones, including joint ventures that are not presently allowed in Kaesong, more reliance on tax incentives, legal protections and managerial discretion, especially regarding labor to attract investors, and allowed use of various currencies. While bilateral economic cooperation between the two Koreas is subject to political pressures from both sides, the Kaesong Industrial Complex has withstood severe strains in recent years and has potential for further expansion under the new South Korean administration that will be elected in December 2012. Whether the more liberal provisions that have been adopted for the economic zones on the Chinese border will find their way into future evolution of the Kaesong zone, will be an important question to monitor over the next couple of years.

Still basic questions remain: Will the new laws adopted for the Rason and Hwanggumpyong and Wihwa Island special economic zones catalyze future changes in the North Korean economy? Will foreign investment and trade increase through these zones? Will North Korea earn significant foreign exchange that is used for more productive purposes than simply lining the pockets of the elite in Pyongyang? Will backward linkages to the domestic economy, acceptance of more liberal market economy principles, and strengthening of institutions for managing external economic cooperation, help North Korea to become a more “normal” country? Or will North Korea retain its reputation for over-control, corruption, and failure to realize its aspirations by the inner circle of the regime trying too hard to have its cake and eat it too? We shall see.

[2] For text of the Hwanggumpyong/Wihwa Island Law see http://www.nkeconwatch.com/nk-uploads/Law-on-hwanggumphyong.pdf (2011). For text of the Rason Law and previous versions, see http://www.nkeconwatch.com/nk-uploads/Law-on-Rason.pdf (2011 rev.); http://chosonexchange.org/?p=1472 (2010 rev.); http://38north.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Rason-2002-Law-Revision.pdf (2002 rev., in Korean); http://38north.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Rason-1999-Law-Revision.pdf (1999 rev., in Korean); and http://38north.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Rason-1993-Law.pdf (1993, in Korean).

[3] See Andray Abrahamian, “A Convergence of Interests: Prospects for Rason Special Economic Zone,” Academic Paper Series, Korea Economic Institute, February 24, 2012; “Chinese businesses pour into N.Korea’s Rajin-Songbong,” Chosun Ilbo, February 26, 2012; “China secures right to use 3 piers to be built on N Korean port for 50 years,” Yonhap News, February15 , 2012; and “N. Korean Business Zones to be included in FTA with China,” Chosun Ilbo, February3, 2012.

[4] “Top Official Says Kim Jong Un Ready to Lead,” Associated Press, January 17, 2012.

[5] See Drew Thompson, “Silent Partners: Chinese Joint Ventures in North Korea,” US-Korea Institute at SAIS, February 2012; and Stephan Haggard, Jennifer Lee and Marcus Noland, “Integration in the Absence of Institutions: China-North Korea Border Exchange,” Working Paper 11-13, Peterson Institute for International Economics, August 2011.

But the defense provided by the Obama administration is not much more encouraging. The President, the line of argument goes, is a reluctant realist or, better yet, a progressive pragmatist. The President has retained his progressive instincts, without dwelling upon them. After the high-minded rhetoric of his inaugural address, he “pivoted” in response to provocations by Iran and North Korea, embracing sanctions, which enjoyed even greater international credibility for his having given it his best shot. For three months.

The Obama administration began with a decent and sensible view of the role of the United States in the world. Almost immediately, however, it seemed to glide past the invisible line demarcating progressive pragmatism from what can best be described as cynicism. A harsh word, I admit. It has been about 2,500 years since an organized philosophical movement described itself as cynics.

Cynicism, however, best describes the administration’s general approach to North Korea and Iran. Whether or not the President believed his campaign rhetoric about engaging with Iran and North Korea, virtually none of the people he appointed did. Privately, most senior officials in the Obama administration believed from day one that the administration could do little or nothing to persuade or compel Iran and North Korea to slow their respective nuclear weapons programs. The appropriate metaphor involving clenched fists would involve the United States prying nuclear weapons from the cold, dead hands of several unpleasant world leaders.

Of course, Iran and North Korea had already done plenty to earn the skepticism of the Obama administration’s new national security team. It is difficult to read either the memoirs of those who have negotiated with North Korea or even Jonathan Pollack’s book, No Exit, and conclude that the North is likely to abandon its nuclear weapons program any time soon. I happen to find the arguments for deep skepticism quite compelling, though I lack the great and unyielding certitude on this point that so many officials seem to express.

This certitude helps explain, for instance, why administration officials express little or no concern about the effect of NATO’s campaign against Libya on nonproliferation efforts. Qaddafi, it should be remembered, surrendered his nuclear weapons and missile programs because he believed doing so would improve his relationship with the West and, presumably, prolong his awful reign. It may not have been the last thing to go through his mind as he was dragged to his ugly death—that was a 9 mm round—but Qaddafi surely wondered whether NATO would have launched airstrikes against a nuclear-armed Libya. So did senior figures from North Korea and Iran, who suggested the Libyan dictator would have been better off keeping his nuclear weapons program.[1] Senior administration officials dismiss completely the possibility that Qaddafi’s fate makes an excellent advertisement for the bomb, which only makes sense if you think the bomb needs no further advertisement.

Yet, if one really believes that we will not be able to pry nuclear weapons from Kim Jong Un’s hands, then why try diplomacy at all? The answer illustrates the difference between cynicism and pragmatism.

In general, the Obama administration has viewed diplomacy not as a means to discourage Iran or North Korea in their nuclear pursuits, but rather as a means to demonstrate that Tehran and Pyongyang have only themselves to blame for their respective programs. Every effort is made to avoid legitimizing either program. The Obama administration, and its defenders, measure the “success” of diplomacy not by whether North Korea or Iran slow their efforts, but whether other countries beyond our closest allies join us in isolating Tehran and Pyongyang.

That this is not the articulated policy of the Obama administration is hardly surprising. The administration is unlikely to announce it is preparing to live with an Iranian bomb or to accept North Korea’s nuclear weapons status. And if the goal is to ensure that blame for a collapse in negotiations attaches to the other party, it hardly helps to declare this policy in advance. Yet, I would argue, this is the policy all the same. And the best term that I can imagine for such approach is cynicism.

There is something to be said, of course, for playing a bit of defense now and then. After any unsuccessful diplomatic engagement, the parties inevitably attempt to persuade international opinion that the other is to blame. It is only natural that we should be prepared to push back against accusations by the likes of Iran and North Korea. There is a fine line between preparing for the possibility of failure and counting on it. By my reckoning, the Obama administration has spent much of its time on the wrong side of that line.

A cynic is usually defined as one who disparages the motives of others. By that narrow definition, of course, it is easy to slip into cynicism about Iran and North Korea. But the deeper meaning arises from what is objectionable; cynicism is contemptuous in that it plays upon the scruples of others. Simply put, cynics act in bad faith.

The demise of the 2010 proposal for a “fuel swap” with Iran is a subject for another article, but it illustrates nicely the charge of cynicism. Starting in 2009, the administration pursued the idea that Iran should swap its stockpile of low enriched uranium for a fresh load of fuel for Tehran’s research reactor, eventually encouraging Brazil and Turkey to lobby Iran to accept the deal. The administration did so largely on the expectation that Iran would refuse such an arrangement, teaching officials in Brazil and Turkey what US officials already knew—that Iran alone was to blame for the failure of diplomacy. The failure of this exercise would be a great success, paving the way for another round of UN sanctions against Iran.

When Brazil and Turkey succeeded in securing Iran’s agreement to the admittedly imbecilic confidence building measure, the Obama administration claimed the President sent, “detailed letters in the last week of April [to Brazil and Turkey] outlining specific concerns” with the deal. When Brazilian officials leaked their copy of the letter—which quite clearly encouraged Brazil and Turkey to seek the agreement that they got—administration officials indicated that the letter could only be understood in the context of private warnings to Brasilia and Ankara. After cables from many of those meetings appeared in the WikiLeaks material—containing only encouragements and no warnings—administration officials resorted to saying that they didn’t ask Brazil and Turkey to negotiate on their behalf. The simplest explanation, based on the available materials, is that the administration did encourage Brazil and Turkey to negotiate with Iran, but on the expectation that Iran would say “no.” When Iran said “yes,” the administration was caught wrong-footed and it showed.

The story of the Leap Day Deal follows a similar arc. The administration designed a policy that made North Korea look bad. The administration conditioned its return to Six Party Talks on North Korea’s compliance with a seemingly reasonable set of “pre-steps,” including moratoria on missile and nuclear tests as well as plutonium production and uranium enrichment activities.[2]

The approach was structured in such a way that the administration seemed a willing and frank interlocutor, would receive most of the benefits up front, but did not extend any concession beyond the provision of nutritional assistance which was, in any event, formally de-linked from Six Party Talks.[3] Then North Korea did something totally unexpected: they agreed to the pre-steps. Or more correctly, they appeared to agree to the pre-steps, coaxed the administration out on a limb, then began sawing furiously by announcing a rocket launch to celebrate the centenary of the Great Leader’s birth.

DPRK officials may have miscalculated about whether they could have their food aid and their rocket launch, too. Or, more likely, they planned the launch all along and were bargaining as a means to reduce the inevitable pressure that the launch would incite. Either way, the Obama administration looked foolish. Administration officials were initially dismissive when reporters pointed to disparities between the US and DPRK descriptions of the terms of the deal. Again, they appear to have been caught completely wrong-footed by another country saying “yes.”

What is unusual about the Leap Day Deal is that it was not a deal at all—it was merely a pair of brief, unilateral statements. Although North Korea exploited this approach, it was apparently the United States that proposed such a format—largely to ensure that North Korea took the blame. In the February 29 Nelson Report—the daily record of American Asia watchers—one observer friendly to the administration summarized his perspective: “The important thing about all this is that, as you explained, this deal was structured differently, and it was set up as a test of NK seriousness. They failed the test.”

One can see, in a number of statements in the Nelson Report, a sort of frustration on the part of the administration: This was supposed to blow up on the North Koreans; we’re not the ones who are supposed to look dumb. The 2010 Fuel Swap with Iran and the 2012 Leap Day Deal with North Korea were the diplomatic equivalents of letter-bombs sent by the United States. They just happened to blow up when returned to sender.

The blunders, by the way, are not the problem—even the best administrations make mistakes and suffer setbacks. Mistakes are interesting because they reveal a lot more about an administration than its successes. Mistakes help us understand what makes an administration tick. The danger from cynicism is much worse than a little egg on the face.

In the long run, cynicism tacitly accepts proliferation in Iran and North Korea. If you believe the administration’s claim that support for sanctions is a measure of foreign policy success, you must also believe that sanctions are likely to, in some way, alter the course of Iranian or North Korean behavior. I don’t know anyone who sincerely believes this, either in the US government or out. This policy substitutes sanctions that satisfy bureaucratic and political imperatives for diplomatic efforts that might manage the challenge posed by nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea. What it amounts to is looking good, while failing.

What might reluctant realism or progressive pragmatism really look like? Designing an agreement that remains in our interest even if the other side cheats is not quite the same thing as designing an agreement that is intended to collapse. One may believe that there is very little to do that would slake Pyongyang’s thirst for nuclear weapons, while also believing that limited agreements with strong verification measures still might help manage the situation even if the other side cheats. This was the primary advantage of the much-maligned and totally misunderstood Agreed Framework.

I know this recommendation is a downer—like “eat your broccoli.” The 1994 Agreed Framework, and the Perry Process created to preserve it, were modest steps toward managing the threat from North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs. These were incremental, band-aid approaches that prevented a terrible situation from becoming much, much worse. (Had North Korea completed the two larger reactors under construction, Pyongyang would have been producing 280 kilograms of weapon-grade plutonium per year by 2000.[4]) Yes, North Korea cheated on the Agreed Framework. No, it did not represent a comprehensive settlement of security issues on the Korean peninsula. There is not much to say for it except, as the Bush administration discovered after 2002, it was better than any of the alternatives.

Of course the reason that no administration races to embrace the 1994 Agreed Framework is that the politics of it were terrible. It was a modest contribution toward avoiding the further deterioration of an already terrible situation. Opponents of the agreement, of course, focused on the few kilograms of plutonium that North Korea might have retained, rather than the hundreds that were prevented. The reaction from opponents of the Agreed Framework was unpleasant to watch. Back in 1994, one US Senator accused Robert Gallucci, the lead negotiator on the agreement, of “appeasement”—and it isn’t as if the US political system has become more civil in the intervening years.[5]

But that is the point. Progressive pragmatism is hard. There is every reason to surrender to a defeated cynicism. If it were easy, it wouldn’t have a special name. If it were easy, we wouldn’t admire Kim Dae Jung for his courage and sacrifice. And, if it were easy, we wouldn’t get so excited when one-term Senators run for President promising: “Change you can believe in.” Of course, those are campaign slogans. The decision-makers are those who won their last election. Statesmen, on the other hand, are the ones who lost.

The reality is that the dysfunctional pattern the United States has established with North Korea, and seems poised to replicate with Iran, exists for a reason. Lousy as it is, it satisfies the short-term interests of most involved, even if the long-term result is a losing situation for everyone. We know that. We also know that trying something else will most likely fail, usually at considerable cost to the person who sticks his neck out. But that’s why we admire those who try.

[2] The United States described these as “pre-steps” rather than “preconditions,” largely because the Obama administration made a big deal out of talking to states like Iran “without preconditions.” A senior official, just a few months before the “pre-steps” language could be found, was mocking the Iranians after a round of talks in Istanbul for insisting that “prerequisites” were not “preconditions.” If someone can explain the difference between preconditions, prerequisites and pre-steps, I’ll send you a “Pre t-shirt” from here: http://www.zazzle.com/prefontaine+tshirts.

[3] In fact, the administration employs a disreputable little sophism to use nutritional assistance as leverage. If North Korea did not keep its word about a moratorium on missile launches in the Six Party Talks, the argument goes, we must assume that they will not keep their word about monitoring provisions for food aid.. Had the Bush administration tried such a howler, pundits would have readied the John Yoo jokes.

[4] Solving the North Korean Nuclear Puzzle, David Albright and Kevin O’Neill, editors, (Washington, DC: ISIS Press, 2000) p. 11.

[5] “I am absolutely accusing the President and Mr. Gallucci of appeasement …” See the comments of Senator John McCain at 5:18 on the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour on October 21, 1994. Video available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsWEpHTJL6Q.

Satellite pictures from April 18, 2012 are the latest in a series of photos that document continuing preparations for an upcoming nuclear test. A March 8, 2012 image shows that North Korea dumped spoil material—excavated from the test tunnel—and created two adjacent teardrop shaped mounds, together covering an area that is 300 square meters greater than observed in 2011 (indicating that the tunnel has been expanded since then) (see figure 1). Overall, some 8,000 cubic meters of rubble have been excavated at the site covering 4,000 square meters. The photo also reveals a dark-toned material situated adjacent to the tunnel entrance which may be stemming material intended to eventually seal the tunnel, but is more likely mud impeding work at the site.

Figure 1: Punggye-ri Nuclear Excavation (March 8, 2012)

GeoEye satellite image/analysis by Allison Puccioni, IHS Jane’s

The imagery, taken after a recent snowfall, shows significant activity: the road system around this remote base is entirely snow-free, indicating extensive vehicle traffic. The central courtyard of the operations base is also clear of snow and there are several signatures of generator activity. A rail line for mining carts (also visible in subsequent pictures) that has been used to bring out and dump excavation material, also known as “spoil,” is visible. Vehicles, structures and unidentified objects are on top of and around the spoil pile, perhaps to prepare the test device and diagnostic equipment in the test chamber. Once that is done, the mining carts can be used to deliver stemming material and spoil to seal the shaft during the final test preparation stage.

A satellite photo from March 27, 2012 shows that there is new vehicle tracking on the spoil pile from the road to the tunnel portal and small pieces of unidentified equipment were also newly placed on top of that pile (see figure 2). It is unclear at this time what this new activity specifically represents with respect to nuclear test preparations.

Figure 2: Punggye-ri Nuclear Excavation (March 27, 2012)

GeoEye satellite image/analysis by Allison Puccioni, IHS Jane’s

The latest imagery, taken April 18, 2012, documents continuing preparations for an upcoming nuclear test and shows a train of mining carts on top of the spoil pile and random unidentified structures or objects on or near the piles (see figure 3). Based on an examination of previous satellite photos, their position and number appear to vary on a day-to-day basis, indicating the continued movement of vehicles, structures and other objects on or near the spoil piles at the mouth of the test tunnel. According to one press report on April 21, the North had completed the removal of the large spoil pile near the test site, probably to seal the tunnel for the explosion. However, this imagery shows the size of the pile largely unchanged. Whether the test device has been emplaced in the chamber and stemming with other material has been completed, remains unclear.

Figure 3: Most recent satellite picture of Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Facility (April 18, 2012)

GeoEye satellite image

The April 18 photo illustrates a drainage ditch that passes water flow from a gully around the spoil pile that blocked the original path. Without such a ditch, the entrance would be muddy, making it more difficult to work in the area. The following 3D ground level rendering of the site highlights the steepness of the terrain and the need for such a ditch.

Figure 4: 3D Model of Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Facility

Google Earth/GeoEye image 2010/rendering by Los Alamos National Laboratories

Figure 5: Successive March – April 2012 imagery shows increasing activity around spoil pile.

Satellite imagery: GeoEye.

This article is a “38 North” exclusive with contributions by Jack Liu and Allison Puccioni.

Introduction

When North Korean leadership transitioned late last year from Kim Jong Il to his son Kim Jong Un, Pyongyang experienced change in more ways than one. Kim Jong Il presided over a nuclear program that produced two plutonium bomb detonations and, towards the end of his reign, ramped up its uranium enrichment program. Today, Kim Jong Un helms a nuclear program that has transitioned from graphite moderated reactors and plutonium to light water reactors (LWR) and uranium enrichment.

The moratorium announced by the DPRK on February 29, 2012 on missile tests, nuclear tests, and operations at the uranium enrichment plant at Yongbyon, in return for nutritional aid from the United States, provided the signal as well as the lever with which to reengage the diplomatic process. The hoped for quid pro quo was that North Korea would curb additional progress in its nuclear weapon program.

The Agreed Framework by and large brought the North Korean plutonium program to a halt from 1994 until 2002, when its implementation collapsed. While the 2007 agreement reached in the Six Party Talks initiated the dismantlement of its plutonium program, North Korea was, at the same time, working on a parallel secret indigenous light water reactor (LWR) program centered around an experimental 100 MWth reactor[1] and a Uranium Enrichment Workshop (UEW) that was built in 2009.[2] North Korea has long sought LWRs. It first tried to acquire them from the Soviet Union and then later used their acquisition as part of the bargain with the United States under the Agreed Framework.[3] However, since this type of reactor fuel requires low enriched uranium (LEU),[4] it opened another door to a weapons option since the centrifuge facilities needed to produce that fuel can also be reconfigured in a short period of time to produce weapons-grade highly enriched uranium (HEU).[5] Therefore, by choosing the uranium route, Pyongyang has found itself an excusable recourse to a viable dual-track option—LEU for producing nuclear electricity with LWRs and HEU as a second route to the bomb to augment its small plutonium inventory.

What We Know about North Korea’s Light Water Reactor Project

Satellite imagery analysis has revealed that North Korea has made important progress in its LWR construction at Yongbyon over the past year.[6] Nevertheless, the reactor will probably not be ready for commissioning for another two to three years. As of November 2011, the North seemed able to complete external construction in six to twelve months. In order to do so, heavy equipment remains to be brought in and installed in the reactor building. That will require manufacturing key nuclear components, and delivering them to the site.

Barring any hiccups in this process or any unexpected acceleration, it will most likely take an additional five to ten years before new plutonium production from a LWR could materialize. The parameters setting the timeline for the production of additional plutonium are calculated when the reactor is completed, fuel irradiated and then cooled. In the meantime, North Korea’s reprocessing plant at Yongbyon could be modified[7] for plutonium separation from the LWR fuel without major difficulties. Current stocks are estimated to be 24 to 42 kilograms plutonium.[8] This amount would be sufficient for four to six nuclear weapons. Once the 100 MWth LWR is operational, it could produce up to 12 kilograms of plutonium annually. This would mean producing sufficient fissile material for a little more than one bomb per year.

What We Know About North Korea’s Enrichment Program

There is some evidence that North Korea began research and development in uranium enrichment in the late 1980s, including acquisition of vacuum equipment from European companies. While such equipment was primarily meant for North Korea’s fuel fabrication plant then under construction, some of the vacuum pumps and valves had specifications that could have been useful for uranium enrichment experiments. These procurement efforts were coordinated through the DPRK’s Embassies in (East) Berlin and in Vienna. North Korean companies involved were Lyongaksan, and Daeson 6th Trading Corporation. The leadership and engineers of the Chongchongang Chemical Plant, whose location is not known, were also involved.  Mr. Yun Ho Jin, a North Korean diplomat based in Vienna during that period, was a key figure in organizing meetings with European vendors. He is also known to have been involved in later proliferation cases.[9]

After this initial phase, Pyongyang received another boost in its enrichment efforts from Pakistan in the mid-1990s, when deliveries of P-1 and P-2 centrifuges, special oils, and other equipment flowed from Pakistan to North Korea. Former Pakistani President General P. Musharraf acknowledged this in his memoirs, In the Line of Fire. President Musharraf wrote that, separately, North Korean engineers were provided training at A.Q. Khan’s Research Laboratories in Kahuta under the auspices of a government-to-government deal on missile technology. There has been speculation that Pyongyang also received the blueprints for centrifuges and other related process equipment from the A.Q. Khan network during that time period.

Figure 1: Approximate 3D Visualization of the Uranium Enrichment Facility at Yongbyon (Click arrows to navigate slides. Click on the “More” in the menu bar to display the feature in full screen mode.)

*Visualization done by Tamara Patton, Graduate Research Assistant at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.[10]

New attempts by the North Koreans to purchase vacuum technology in 2002 strongly pointed to the acquisition of additional equipment destined for uranium enrichment purposes. Information on North Korea’s procurement activities in the late 1990s to the early 2000s showed its objective was to achieve a semi-industrial[11] scale enrichment capacity, based on the Pakistani P-2 centrifuge design. In 1997, the North attempted to acquire large amounts of maraging steel suitable for manufacturing centrifuge rotors. In 2002/2003, Pyongyang successfully procured large quantities of high strength aluminum from Russia and the United Kingdom, another requirement for making centrifuges. A simple tally of the amounts and types of equipment and material sought by North Korea suggests that it planned to develop, at least, an A.Q. Khan HEU production scheme, which requires about 5900 centrifuges. That means a 5000 centrifuge strong enrichment capacity. (The rest is spares and those which do not pass quality control tests.) [12]

This appears not only consistent with a separate earlier enrichment offer A.Q. Khan had made to Libya, but the timing and pattern of acquisitions is also interesting. Iran, Libya and North Korea appear to have started initial acquisition of enrichment technology through vendors in Europe around 1987. Then, between 1993 and 1996, these countries turned to the A.Q. Khan network and acquired larger deliveries of raw materials and probably also obtained more advanced P-2 technology.

Implications of North Korea’s Enrichment Capabilities

It is highly likely that the UEW at Yongbyon is not the only uranium enrichment installation in North Korea. At least one other workshop would have been needed to serve as a test bed for pilot cascades of P-1 and P-2 centrifuges prior to the beginning of semi-industrial scale enrichment operations. Such an installation should have a few hundred centrifuges. While no uranium hexafluoride (UF6)[13] fabrication plant has been located in the North, its existence has been traced as far back as 2000, when subsequent investigations revealed that North Korea had shipped UF6 to the Libyan enrichment program.[14] Concerns over high enrichment were also prompted by the detection of HEU particles from aluminum samples handed over by the North Koreans to a US monitoring team in 2007 as part of the Six Party Talk agreement.[15] As contamination could have resulted from either tainted imported centrifuge equipment or from indigenous enrichment, its source remains unknown.

In any event, work at the UEW site has never been monitored. A glimpse of the facility was revealed when North Korea invited a group of visitors from Stanford University (including Professor Siegfried Hecker, the former Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory) to a brief visit in 2010. If commissioning of the UEW has been successful, North Korea would have at present at least 3.5 tons of UF6, enriched to 3.5% U-235. This output is consistent with the annual needs of the 100 MWth LWR currently under construction. By 2013, there should be enough material, about four tons of uranium dioxide (UO2), for the first core of the 100 MWth LWR.

Such an enrichment plant could also be easily modified to produce HEU for nuclear explosives. If we look at possible future HEU production in North Korea, there are several permutations to consider from a technical standpoint depending on the availability of vital raw materials such maraging steel. The following are three possibilities with regard to operations at the UEW:

• Utilize the current LEU cascades and install additional cascades to enrich LEU to weapons-grade HEU;
• Modify the existing cascades to produce HEU;
• Utilize the current LEU configuration at the workshop and construct additional cascades for LEU and HEU production.

The first, most straightforward option would be to install an additional 1000[16] centrifuges to convert the annual production of 1.8 tons of LEU at Yongbyon to 40 kilograms of HEU. This is an amount sufficient to generate the necessary fissile material for one to two additional nuclear bombs per year.[17] Such a step-wise scheme was foreseen in Libya by enriching 3.5% enriched uranium first to 20%, then from 20% to 60%, and finally from 60% to 90% U-235.[18] The actual conversion of 3.5% to 90% would take only a couple of months. This scenario would require the availability of additional raw materials and key equipment. Here we are faced with a few unknowns. For instance, we do not know the source and amount of maraging steel—a key raw material for manufacturing additional centrifuges—available to North Korea.

Second, the existing UEW could be reconfigured to produce HEU by recycling LEU. This would be a viable option if North Korea lacks the key materials to manufacture new centrifuges. However, this scenario would not be able to take full advantage of the installed centrifuges since the cascades for HEU production have a different layout, which forces the operator to leave a number of centrifuges unused. Consequently, the time needed to produce HEU would increase under this scenario.

Third, for the DPRK to fully optimize its HEU production following the A.Q. Khan scheme, it would install an additional 2000 centrifuges that could produce 3.5% enriched uranium with an extra 1900 centrifuges[19] for HEU production. This option, using 5900 centrifuges, would turn all natural UF6 into HEU and produce up to 80 kilograms of HEU annually or an amount sufficient for four nuclear bombs.  However, there are no indications that the DPRK has required key raw materials to be able to manufacture thousands of additional centrifuges. Such a scenario would require, for instance, an additional 60 tons of maraging steel.

Next Steps by North Korea

The DPRK has invited the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to monitor its moratorium on uranium enrichment, but it appears that arrangement will not go forward with the collapse of the February 29 agreement. If it does, IAEA inspectors will likely be limited by the DPRK to prior arrangements implemented in 2007, which would mean that the IAEA would verify that the UEW is shutdown, but it will neither be permitted to verify the inventory of LEU nor establish the historical production of enriched uranium. Under such circumstances, the IAEA would only have access to the UEW. Any other installations, including conversion and (potential undisclosed) enrichment facilities, would not be included. Access to those facilities would have to be negotiated within the Six Party Talks.

With the April 13 satellite launch, North Korea has stepped determinedly towards a confrontational course with its Six Party Talk partners, and the United Nations Security Council has issued a Presidential Statement condemning its actions. Under such circumstances, what are the nuclear-related options North Korea can exercise if it chooses to raise the stakes even further? Conduct another nuclear test? This is certainly possible, but one that would further deplete Pyongyang’s precious plutonium stocks. What about the alternative of a uranium bomb test? This assumes that the North Koreans have succeeded in producing HEU (in sufficient quantities as well) and have a bomb design.[20] Yet another step is for North Korea to forge ahead with the production of HEU and demonstrate that capability to the international community short of a bomb test.[21]

As governments, diplomats and experts assess how to deal with North Korea’s new leadership under Kim Jong Un, the message that everyone should remain mindful of is that the DPRK’s nuclear program has transitioned from solely relying on the production of plutonium to adding a new feature, the growing production of enriched uranium. Transitioning away from this ominous onward march through a slowdown, suspension and gradual turnaround will be the ultimate test of a true transition that will eventually integrate North Korea back to the international community.

[2] Siegfried S. Hecker, “A Return Trip to North Korea’s Yongbyon Nuclear Complex,” Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University, November 20, 2010.

[3] As a part of the October 1994 Agreed Framework, the United States undertook to make arrangements for the provision to the DPRK of a LWR project with a total generating capacity of approximately 2,000 MW(e) by a target date of 2003.

[4] LWR fuel is enriched generally up to 4% U-235.

[5] Highly enriched uranium, HEU, contains 90%  U-235. Uranium in nature has 0.7% U-235.

[6] “North Korea Makes Significant Progress in Building New Experimental Light Water Reactor (ELWR),” 38 North, US-Korea Institute at SAIS: Johns Hopkins University, November 14, 2011, http://38north.org/2011/11/elwr111411/.

[7] Modifications are mainly required to the so-called head end, which includes fuel chopping and dissolution. Much of the needed information is available in open literature, e.g. from the Eurochemic plant, which operated  from 1966 to 1974  in Dessel, Belgium. The DPRK used already this information for the design of the original Reprocessing Plant in Yongbyon.

[8] S. Hecker, “Lessons learned from North Korean nuclear crises,” Daedalus, Winter 2010, 44-56.

[9] J. Solomon, “North Korean Pair Viewed as Key to Secret Arms Trade,” The Wall Street Journal Asia, August 31, 2010.

[10] Sources: http://iis-db.stanford.edu/pubs/23035/HeckerYongbyon.pdf and http://thebulletin.org/web-edition/features/north-korea-30000-feet.

[11] Semi-industrial enrichment plants are used to demonstrate that the process is working properly before proceeding with a full scale expensive investment. In the chemical industry, this is often called to a pilot plant. Semi-industrial plants have customarily about 1000 centrifuges when the full size enrichment plants can have tens of thousands of centrifuges.

[12] The total number could be as high as 7000 centrifuges, but a reserve for the replacement of failed centrifuges and small test cascades is also required.

[13] Uranium hexafluoride is the feed gas for the centrifuges.

[14] “Application of Safeguards in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” IAEA, Board of Governors General Conference, GOV/2011/53 – GC(55)24, September 2, 2011.

[15] G. Kessler, “New Doubts On Nuclear Efforts by North Korea,” Washington Post, March 1, 2007.

[16] The scheme could be as follows: 3.5-20% four cascades, each 164 centrifuges, 20-60% two cascades, each 114 centrifuges, and 60-90% two cascades, each 64 centrifuges.

[17] A nuclear weapon design, which was floating in the A.Q. Khan network, required less than 20 kilograms of HEU.

[18] Annexure to a plea agreement of Mr. Daniel Geiges available from http://www.npa.gov.za/UploadedFiles/GEIGES%20Annexure%20to%20Plea%20agreement%2016%201%2008%20_2_.pdf.

[19] The scheme could be as follows: 3.5-20% eight cascades, each 164 centrifuges, 20-60% four cascades, each 114 centrifuges, and 60-90% two cascades each 64 centrifuges.

[20] In 2004, the IAEA became aware that some computers of the members of the A.Q. Khan had some design drawings of a more advanced uranium device, which had likely been developed around mid-1990s.

[21] The DPRK can also follow the playbook of Iran by claiming that it is enriching uranium for its old Soviet-made IRT research reactor. The IRT reactor, which is also located in Yongbyon, has not received new fuel in last three decades. The IRT reactor fuel is 36% (U-235) enriched uranium.

By the 1970s, North Korea had become a family state unlike any other in the communist world. The DPRK in this respect was more like Saudi Arabia or a Gulf Emirate state than East Germany or Vietnam. Closer to home geographically if not ideologically, Taiwan and Singapore both saw transfers of power from their founding leaders to their sons in the 1980s and 1990s. But among communist states, which generally decried hereditary succession as “feudal” (as did North Korea itself until hereditary succession became official policy), the Kim family’s inter-generational power transfer was unique. Perhaps the Ceausescu family of Romania came close to such a monopoly of power toward the end of the communist regime there—Elena Ceausescu was allegedly slated to succeed her husband before their execution in 1989—but Nikolai Ceausescu had long been inspired by Kim Il Sung’s leadership style, not excluding familial rule.

Although such a move was unprecedented in the communist world, selecting Kim Il Sung’s eldest son to succeed him fit logically with North Korea’s evolving political culture, which had moved increasingly away from communist orthodoxy since the 1950s. Even in the earliest years of the regime, North Korean propaganda noted Kim Il Sung’s “revolutionary lineage” (hyŏngmyŏngjŏk kagye) as one of his qualifications for his leadership. Kim, in contrast to Stalin or Mao, did not become a revolutionary out of rebellion against his father, but carried on his father’s own revolutionary (that is, nationalist and anti-Japanese) world-view and activities. Beginning with the example of the Great Leader, North Korean propaganda increasingly stressed filial piety as a key virtue. Korean culture—even (perhaps especially) in North Korea—has long placed a supreme value on filial piety and obedience to elders. Unlike in China during the Cultural Revolution, North Korean ideology simply had no place for rebellion against one’s parents. The other side of filial piety is the belief that parents’ values will inevitably pass down to the next generation, for good or ill. Thus, children and grandchildren of landlords and pro-South Korean collaborators still face discrimination in the DPRK, and conversely descendents of revolutionaries and Korean War heroes are held to be politically and even morally superior.

Given this logic, Kim Il Sung’s family was the ultimate “good” family, and being raised in the bosom of the Great Leader gave Kim Jong Il the ideal background for leadership himself. As the cult of Kim Il Sung and his family became ever more entrenched in the DPRK, it became increasingly unlikely that anyone would question Kim Jong Il’s right to succeed his father once the Great Leader had put his imprimatur on it. In his own way, Kim Il Sung had solved the problem of political instability that had plagued other communist states following the demise of their founding leaders. Post-Kim Il Sung North Korea was to have many profound problems, but unstable leadership succession was not among them.

A list of blood relatives and in-laws of the Kim family, compiled by the Soviet embassy in January1974, gives a sense of the “Kim family regime” already in place in the early 1970s: in addition to Kim Jong Il and Kim Yŏng Ju, there was Kang Yang Uk, the Protestant minister related to Kim Il Sung’s mother, who was Vice President of the DPRK; Kim Il Sung’s second wife, a member of the KWP Central Committee; and Foreign Minister Hŏ Dam, the husband of Kim Il Sung’s cousin. Another cousin was the Vice President of the Academy of Social Sciences, Kim’s brother-in-law was Second Secretary of the State Party Committee of Pyongyang, and several others family members occupied leading positions in the party and state.[1]

The Soviets did not have a particularly flattering opinion of Kim Jong Il himself. In January 1976, a Soviet diplomat in Pyongyang reported to an East German colleague that Kim Jong Il’s university record had been distinguished not so much by “particular talents or accomplishments,” as by a good deal of consorting with female classmates. In fact, the younger Kim had hardly studied at all and barely passed his course (in contrast, the official hagiography of Kim Jong Il has extolled his “unparalleled genius” as a student). Nevertheless, the Soviets were certain that by 1975 Kim Jong Il had already been chosen as Kim Il Sung’s successor. Although the younger Kim was not yet in authority, there was really no other competition after the elimination of his uncle Kim Yŏng Ju, nor anyone with the equivalent experience in the party and state apparatus.[2] Kim Jong Il may not have been an intellectual giant, but he had a consummate talent for ruthless political manoeuvring. In this respect he was very much like his father, who had manoeuvred his way to leadership under the Soviet occupation thirty years before. We can assume Kim Jong Il saw this political ruthlessness in his own son, and that this was a major factor in the choice of Kim Jong Un as his successor.

Kim’s final step toward official succession was receiving the Order of Kim Il Sung in 1979. Like the Order of Lenin in the USSR, the Order of Kim Il Sung was the highest award granted in the DPRK. It was established in April 1972 on Kim Il Sung’s 60th birthday, under the auspices of the Central Committee of the Korean Workers’ Party. According to Kim Jong Il’s 1985 biography, the Central Committee, “in compliance with the unanimous wish of the Workers’ Party of Korea and the Korean people,” wanted to give the first award to Kim Jong Il. The young Kim modestly declined, and the decoration remained unawarded for seven years. Finally, in April 1979 Kim Jong Il accepted the award.[3] The following year, Kim Jong Il’s rise to leadership went public at the Sixth Congress of the Korean Workers’ Party, convened October 10–14, 1980. The younger Kim was appointed to the second-highest rank in the Secretariat after his father, the third-highest rank in the Military Commission, and the fourth-highest rank in the Politburo. No North Korean leader other than Kim Il Sung had achieved such high positions in all three organizations simultaneously. Kim Jong Il had become the number-two person in the entire North Korean leadership system and the unassailable heir to the throne.

By the 1980s, the cult of the Kim family extended back several generations through both paternal and maternal lines. Kim Il Sung’s great grandfather Kim Ung U was alleged to have led the attack on the USS General Sherman, an American merchant ship that had the misfortune of running aground near Pyongyang in 1866. Kim Jong Il’s mother, Kim Chŏng Suk, gained a substantial personality cult of her own. The birthplace of Kim Il Sung in Mangyŏngdae outside of Pyongyang became a shrine to the Great Leader’s family, which in a revolutionary twist on Confucian tradition, was said to have “educated their children in the high spirits of patriotism and revolution” from generation to generation. Clearly the regime was attempting to mobilize familial emotions to elicit citizen loyalty, with an implicit division of emotional identification. Whereas Kim Il Sung became identified with paternal imagery, referred to increasingly as “father” (abŏji) by the 1970s, Kim Jong Il was associated with more maternal images of tenderness, intimacy, and love. He became the “Beloved” or “Dear” Leader, the center of the “Mother Party” (ŏmŏnidang). The sentiment this imagery was apparently expected to inspire was not obedience to the stern authority of the father, but spontaneous love for the motherly party-state, represented by Kim Jong Il. Love for parents and love for nation were said to be inseparable. According to a biography of Kim Il Sung’s mother, Kang Pan Sŏk:

Indeed, there cannot be a patriot, who would not love and respect his parents. Any patriot loves his parents, wife and children above all. These feelings are not only connected with the persons near and dear, they are closely bound up with the motherland’s destiny.[4]

North Korea became a full-fledged family state in the 1980s not only in the sense of one-family rule, but also in the self-image of the whole society as a nuclear family. The “familization” of North Korea represented by Kim Jong Il’s succession was a further step in the increasingly inward-looking, nationalistic path North Korea had pursued since the 1950s. Henceforth, the DPRK would give little more than lip service to Marxism-Leninism or proletarian internationalism. North Korean publications continued to speak of the “working class,” but the main stress in North Korea propaganda was not on class conflict, but on the conflict between the Korean nation, represented by the Kim family, against hostile outside forces. The nation was a family, Kim Il Sung was the father, the Party was the mother, and all foreigners were outside the boundaries of understanding and intimacy. Communist or capitalist, developed or undeveloped, other countries had nothing to teach the Kims’ Korea, which would go its own unique way. Politically and economically, North Korea may have looked like the most unreformed of communist states in the early 1980s. Ideologically however, North Korea was already becoming “post-communist.”

The “Kim Family Regime” was established over thirty years ago and has survived intact to this day. There have been ups and downs in the hierarchy, and struggles for power within the royal family and the upper echelons of the Party and the military, but the basic principle of hereditary succession has never been in question. Power is directly related to one’s access to the ruling Kim(s), and therefore the chances of a frontal challenge to the current Leader from within the elite are extremely remote. Nor is the ruling Kim merely a symbolic monarch; despite Kim Jong Un’s youth and relative inexperience, he is steadily amassing titles and—apparently—real authority. Speculation about instability, elite fracture, or coup d’etat (much less a popular uprising) is just that: speculation, without a shred of evidence. Of course it is impossible to prove that nothing is going on behind the scenes, but everything we have seen over the last several months suggests Kim Jong Un’s accession to power is going according to plan. The system Kim Il Sung put in place in the 1970s has remarkably successful in its primary goal, which was to keep his family in power for generations to come.

[2] GDR Embassy in DPRK, February 3, 1976. “Notes on Conversation of Comrade Joachim Pohl, Third Secretary of the GDR Embassy, with Second Secretary of the USSR Embassy in the DPRK, Comrade Victor Alexandrovich Tibunsky, 20 January 1976.” MfAA C6854.

[3] Choe In Su, Kim Jong Il, The People’s Leader (2) (Pyongyang: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1983), p. 375-9.

[4] The Mother of Korea: Biographical Novel (Pyongyang: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1978), p. 108.

Kim Jong Un waves to the masses during the military parade commemorating Kim Il Sung's centenary birthday. (Photo: AP)

True, this event-packed month is not quite done yet. The 28th April Spring Friendship Art Festival still has a few days to run, bringing to the good people of Pyongyang such cultural delights as the Trumpet Ensemble of Belarus. Not forgetting the song and dance troupe of the General Political Department of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. (Catchy name!)

Lest you imagine this has anything to do with art, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) was commendably candid. Announcing the festival on March 29, KCNA hailed the “over 50 art troupes from 20 odd countries… Their performances will be devoted to praising President Kim Il Sung, revered as the sun of Juche by the world progressives.” That surely can’t apply to the Festival’s most unlikely performers: the Sons of Jubal, a 150-strong male chorus who are all Baptist music ministers from Georgia (the US state, not the country). So much for aesthetics.

One important date yet to come is April 25. That’s Army Day, which this year marks the 80th anniversary of the Korean People’s Army (KPA). Like much in the DPRK’s official history, this is fiction. The real KPA wasn’t formed until 1948, on February 8. That was the date they celebrated until 1978, when it got pushed back to mark instead the supposed founding of Kim Il Sung’s tiny guerrilla band in 1932. In North Korea, after all, myth rules.

Just in case the rumors are right and the DPRK is contemplating a nuclear test to compensate for the failed rocket launch on April 13, then April 25 might be deemed an appropriate date for it. But this article lays off the rocketry, amply covered by 38 North of late, to look instead at the politics which unfolded in Pyongyang last week. What happened, and what have we learned?

The answer is: Quite a lot, on both counts. Enough to burst the bounds of a single article.

Conference Yes, Congress No

What happened were two important meetings, one habitual and the other not. The Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA), North Korea’s version of a parliament, always meets at this time of year, just for a day. I’ll get to that in Part II (coming soon). But the Party comes first, in every sense. The SPA met on April 13, the same day as that ill-fated rocket—and two days after the ruling Korean Workers’ Party (KWP) held a rare delegate conference, which was the main event.

A KWP conference, be it noted, is not the same as a KWP congress. Due process is hardly a DPRK specialty, but one does wonder whether they’ve completely given up on the full Party Congresses, which, by the rules, are supposed to be held every five years. Nearly a third of a century has elapsed since the last one (the Sixth) in October 1980. That was when Kim Jong Il—hitherto obliquely referred to as the ‘Party Center’—was first revealed to the world. A KCNA article on February 28 casually mentioned in passing that “decades had passed since the Sixth Congress of the KWP,” but apparently felt no obligation to explain this anomaly.

KCNA was more revealing on what party conferences are for. Indeed, the article headline is “Koreans Recall History of KWP Conferences.” They are “held to settle the urgent problems of the times.” Thus “the Party conference in March 1958 reviewed the work of wiping out (sic) those engaged in factional tricks within the Party.” ‘Wiping out’: that’s honest – and no metaphor. This, of course, is when Kim Il Sung finished purging those comrades whose idea of communism was something other than one man’s arbitrary tyranny. The main action took place in 1956, as recounted in Andrei Lankov’s gripping 2004 book Crisis in North Korea.[1]

KCNA continues: “Another Party conference in October 1966 took measures to reorganize the overall work for socialist construction and step up defence building under the situation in which the imperialists were intensifying the anti-socialist moves.” That’s half the truth—but for defense, read attack. This was indeed when North Korea began ramping up provocations against South Korea and the United States; Kim Il Sung called for US forces to be “dispersed to the maximum … on every front of the world.” Narushige Michishita quotes this in a meticulous study of what he calls, “North Korea’s Military-diplomatic campaigns;” he takes 1966 as his starting-point.[2] (There is no end-point. Writing in 2010, Michishita took the tale up to 2008.)

What KCNA doesn’t say is that the 1966 conference was also when Kim extended one-man rule to one-family rule, initially by positioning his brother Kim Yong Ju as successor. Again some comrades tried to stop this (the Kapsan faction), and again they met a sticky end.[3]

Dead or Alive

And then no more KWP conferences for 40 years, though they did manage two Congresses in 1970 and 1980 before those petered out as well. But in 2010 the conference format sprang back to life, as did the Party top echelons, and now we’ve had two just 19 months apart. For whatever reason, this was the medium chosen to launch Kim Jong Un. September 2010 saw his first public appearance, and now as widely predicted he has assumed the top party job.

To be precise, and continuing the bizarre practice whereby mere physical death is no bar to nominal office in the DPRK, the April 11 meeting saw the late Kim Jong Il designated as ‘eternal general secretary,’ while his still sentient son got a new title: that of first secretary. Kim Jong Un also now chairs the KWP Central Military Commission (CMC). Before, he had been one of two CMC vice-chairmen: a position created especially for him, and hitherto the only KWP post he held other than being a member of its Central Committee (CC).

So far, so predictable. Much more interesting are other personnel changes. Overall, the Party and its top-most organs—the Central Committee and Politburo—are clearly back in business. No longer will the Politburo be left to rot, as under Kim Jong Il: changing only as its aging members gradually died off. (Whether the CC and Politburo actually meet is another matter.)

September 2010 saw a new full Politburo and Central Committee named for the first time since Kim Il Sung died in 1994. Now, barely a year and a half later, the KWP leadership has been drastically reshuffled again, which is hardly unexpected during a succession process.

Choe Rises

The new name to conjure with is Choe Ryong Hae, whose cup positively runneth over. Son of the late Choe Hyon, a guerrilla comrade of Kim Il Sung who became Minister of People’s Armed Forces (MPAF, i.e. defense minister), Choe has long been close to the Kim family. So close, in fact, that according to Bradley Martin, during their student days Kim Jong Il—a bit of a tearaway, back then—organized a rather crude and cruel sexual prank on his friend; who ever thereafter bore a nickname hinting at what might delicately be called self-reliance.[4]

Despite this, during the 1980s and 90s Choe helped smooth Kim Jong Il’s succession within the Party—especially in the Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League, which he long headed until relieved in 1998. The official reason given was (unspecified) illness,[5] but there were rumors of corruption. Several others, less well connected than Choe, may have paid with their lives.[6] Or maybe at 48 he was simply deemed too old, though just a year ago he was again pictured leading a student loyalty rally—albeit, by then, surely a superannuated juvenile at age 61.[7]

Be that as it may, for eight years Choe Ryong Hae vanished from view. In 2006 he bounced back as party secretary for North Hwanghae province, south of Pyongyang. Four years later 2010’s KWP conference saw him recalled to the center in a big way. In one fell swoop Choe became a Party secretary and joined the CMC and—as an alternate member—the Politburo.

Toy Soldiers

Nor was this all. Alongside Kim Jong Un and his aunt, Kim Jong Il’s sister Kim Kyong Hui, Choe Ryong Hae was gazetted as a four-star KPA general, despite having no military career. One can only wonder what real generals, whose stripes have been hard-won, think of this. If at one level it shows the military’s clout—to be a real somebody in today’s Pyongyang, you have to be a general or pretend to be—at the same time, it surely devalues the rank.

Choe hardly looks comfortable or convincing in uniform.[8] He’d better get used to it, since he looks to be stuck with it, unlike that power couple of fellow toy-soldiers Kim Kyong Hui and husband Jang Song Thaek, who each only had to wear it once. Eagle-eyed readers please correct me, but I’ve only ever seen Kim Jong Il’s sister sporting her KPA general’s finery at the September 2010 KWP meeting, right after her promotion. Hubby Jang, who got his four stars (and his full Politburo membership) over a year later, wore KPA uniform on Christmas Day—not that they call it that, obviously—at Kim Jong Il’s bier, but was back in his usual civvies days later as one of the “Big 8” who walked beside the Lincoln hearse at the funeral.

Jang Song Thaek on left in military uniform. (Photo: Yonhap News)

The sartorial plot thickens. In the platform party at the SPA on April 13, both husband and wife stood out. Kim Kyong Hui was the sole woman in the front row, while Jang was seated among the top brass on Kim Jong Un’s left—but was the only one of them not in uniform. The niceties of who wears uniforms and when appear elusive. The new commander-in-chief doesn’t seem to bother, any more than the old one did: was Kim Jong Il ever seen in military garb? His son’s sole dress innovation so far goes the other way: a new photograph shows Kim Jong Un wearing a western-style suit and tie instead of his usual Mao jacket. Kim Il Sung sometimes used to dress thus, but again I can’t recall ever seeing Kim Jong Il wearing a collar and tie. Make of all this what you will; maybe one shouldn’t obsess, but it intrigues.

Kim Jong Un in a western style suit and tie. (Photo via KoreaBANG)

Military devaluation also occurs in another way, by dilution. Kim Jong Il used to promote big batches of KPA generals, no doubt to curry favor with them. His son is continuing this practice: on April 13 Kim Jong Un created 70 new generals, the second time he has done this in the few months since he became leader and C-in-C. Since Radiopress in Japan no longer seem to produce their invaluable North Korea Directory, I’m sadly not in a position to keep score. But vast though the KPA is, it must surely by now be overly top-heavy with top brass.

But back to Choe Ryong Hae. Last week saw him further promoted, on all fronts. In the Party he succeeds Kim Jong Un as vice-chair of the CMC, and is also now one of the five members of the Politburo Presidium: the KWP’s topmost body. More strikingly, in military rank he has risen from general to vice-marshal: presumably the better to perform his new job—also announced last week—as director of the General Political Bureau of the KPA.

Who’s Zooming Who

To place a civilian in that role is remarkable. It suggests a bid to reassert Party control over a military which under Kim Jong Il rather ruled the roost. Then again, perhaps for balance, the thrust of the new Politburo appointments could be read the opposite way: as strengthening the KPA’s clout. Four of the six new full Politburo members are military men. They include Kim Jong Gak: perhaps the hardest-faced of all the KPA top brass (a hotly contested title), appointed as MPAF on April 11 two months after being promoted to vice-marshal. He is 70.

The others are Hyon Chol Hae (77), freshly promoted vice-marshal and newly appointed as MPAF first vice minister plus director of the General Logistics Bureau; and the ministers of both state and people’s security—readers of James Church know the difference. Kim Won Hong (newly appointed, aged 66) and Ri Myong Su (78), who has been in post a year.

Noting Kim Jong Gak’s appointment as MPAF, Michael Madden made a striking comment:

From 2007 to 2012 VMar Kim served as senior deputy (1st vice) director of the Korean People’s Army [KPA] General Political Department [GPD] (bureau), which is responsible for political control and ideological indoctrination of enlisted personnel and officers of the KPA… The position of GPD director has been vacant since the November 2010 death of VMar Jo Myong Rok (Cho Myo’ng-rok) and Kim’s February 2012 promotion initially suggested that he would be elevated to that position. Senior personnel changes at GPD are likely to become clearer as the next 72 hours unfold.

All the more interesting, then, that this key post went instead to a civilian, hastily uniformed. The wider issue of the relative clout of the KWP and KPA is hard to assess. A useful chart of the new line-up, by Luke Herman, could be read as favoring the former. For one thing, the 5-man presidium contains only one true military man: vice-marshal Ri Yong-ho, who rose suddenly at the 2010 KWP meeting but seems to have marked time since. Contra the picture layout, recent DPRK press reports rank Ri below the jumped-up Choe Ryong Hae[9]: here pictured in uniform, but surely to be counted as a civilian for present purposes.

Scrolling down the mostly rather grim mug-shots, set out in rows of four, the next dozen are pretty solidly civilian. Only vice-marshal Kim Yong Chun—still ranked #6, though no longer defense minister—and the elderly Ri Yong Mu (aged 87, ranked #14) are in uniform. But the balance changes in the bottom row, consisting of the newly promoted military quartet named above.

O Yes

Also of note is the return of O Kuk Ryol to the Politburo, if only as an alternate member. Thirty years ago as Chief of General Staff he was a full member, after an already eventful career which by one account included flying sorties to defend Cairo from Israeli attack during the 1973 war; he went on to head the Air Force. In the 1980s he reportedly played a key role in winning the KPA’s acceptance of Kim Jong Il’s succession. Sacked in 1988, apparently in a power struggle with the then MPAF O Jin U (no relation), he almost but not quite vanished from view: remaining a member of the Supreme People’s Assembly, on which more below.

There are all kinds of rumors as to what else he may have got up to, from cyberwarfare to counterfeiting; can anyone confirm any of that?[10] He re-emerged in public in 2009 as a vice-chairman of the National Defence Commission, which 38 North readers don’t need telling is the DPRK’s topmost executive body—outranking the merely civilian Cabinet. Presumably his return at (now) age 81 is because his smoothing skills are once more needed.

Or, more dismayingly, might it also be part of a push to extend the pedigree principle? O is either the son or nephew of O Jung Hup, a partisan comrade of Kim Il Sung. In July 2010 he was present at a ceremony marking O Jung Hup’s centenary, when wreaths were laid before the latter’s bust in the Revolutionary Martyrs Cemetery on Mt. Taesong in Pyongyang.[11]

This seems to be becoming a habit. On April 9, almost on the eve of the KWP conference, much was made of the 30th anniversary of the death of Choe Hyon. Wreaths were laid at Mt. Taesong, and Choe was also honored by a national memorial service and a laudatory article in KCNA.[12] His son Choe Ryong Hae, needless to say, was prominent at both the meetings.

Observing this, one can only wonder if the hereditary principle is being expanded out from the Kims alone to solidify a wider yangban class in Pyongyang. In the 21st century, on the world’s most dynamic continent, a reactionary reversion to bloodlines in what is supposedly a socialist and meritocratic regime gives scant hope of change, much less progress.

But there was much more. To be continued…

[2] Routledge, 2011; http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415666893. Kim is quoted on p 17. A more detailed account of Kim Il Sung’s call to arms is in Major Daniel P. Bolger, Scenes from an Unfinished War: Low Intensity Conflict in Korea 1966-1969, ch 2, http://www.kwva.org/second_korean_war.htm.

[3] For a summary account of this episode, see Jae-cheon Lim, Kim Jong Il’s Leadership of North Korea (Routledge 2011), pp 38-39, http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415666749/.

[4] Bradley K Martin, Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader (St Martin’s Press, 2004), p 222.

[5] Martin says 1997, which is a year out.

[6] Martin op cit, pp 573-4.

[7] See http://nkleadershipwatch.wordpress.com/2012/04/11/kim-jong-gak-appointed-minister-of-peoples-armed-forces/; for Choe, scroll down to the fifth image and accompanying text.

[8] See http://nkleadershipwatch.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/pyh2012041502340001300_p2.jpg.

[9] See, for example, http://www.rodong.rep.kp/InterEn/index.php?strPageID=SF01_02_01&newsID=2012-04-15-0011&chAction=L.

[10] An interesting source, albeit itself unsourced and with some omissions and errors (such as claiming O Kuk Ryol is related to O Jin U) is http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2009/06/03/3887/. More recently, see Nicolas Levi at Sino-NK: http://sinonk.com/2012/02/01/o-kuk-ryol-the-old-guard-never-dies/. As always, Michael Madden is indispensable: http://nkleadershipwatch.wordpress.com/leadership-biographies/gen-o-kuk-ryol/.

[11] The website www.nk-news.net, which renders KCNA searchable from 1998 onwards, has only 27 mentions of O Kuk Ryol, none earlier than 2009.

[12] The wreath-laying is reported at http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2012/201204/news10/20120410-25ee.html; the national memorial meeting at http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2012/201204/news10/20120410-37ee.html; and the eulogy is at http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2012/201204/news10/20120410-35ee.html.