The Korea Herald points to a report by Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College researcher Ken E. Gause on North Korea’s civil-military networks and how they function. Wonks can download the full 68-page report (.pdf file) via the Strategic Studies Institute website. If you’re into Kremlinology, or whatever the related term for Pyongyang is, than this is the report for you.
The Herald made a particular note of Gause’s warning that Kim Jong-il’s preference for bureaucratic rivalry could eventually plunge the North into warlordism:
As Kim Jong Il continues to isolate his power by narrowing the channels of communication and transferring lines of authority between bureaucracies, he is not only causing deep fractures within the leadership, but also bringing the security forces into conflict with each other. These two outcomes have direct consequences for the elite, who see their access to the Suryong, and the perks associated with that access, threatened. While Kim Jong Il prefers bureaucratic rivalry as the chief operating principle of his regime over the long term, the conflicts that it engenders could result in potentially destabilizing antiregime outbursts by demoralized and disenfranchised organizations. This, in turn, could lead to the creation of warlords, who are able to serve as rallying points for the frustrated elements within the elite.
As I’ve mentioned here on the blog, warlordism in the DPRK could be a very scary thing.
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If history teaches anything about such regimes, it is that they are in the long run deeply unstable, even incapable of long run survival. The rest of us ought to plan for many contingencies, not just warlordism, or a faction of fanatic racial fascists looking looking to immanentize some lunatic manifest destiny. It is a destructive fantasy to think that anyone can manage the dissolution of such regimes. Be prepared for anything.
Taking in those who would leave seems to be the moral and practical minimum, and helps drain this septic wound. It is also, in the end, one of the cheapest things that can be done, even if it seems difficult and expensive in prospect.
Thanks for the lead to this report, by the way.
“warlordism” — you mean the military version of the regional/bureacratic and personal politics of patronage that dominates the ROK and the Yi dynasty and its predecessors? What an original insight.
The article says Jong Il is known as Suryong - is this title used for both father and son?
Suryong just means Leader, in the fascist sense.
father was/is the Great Suryong and son is the Dear Suryong…
Oddly enough, this sounds very much like a RPG scenario. Perhaps KJI should apply for a patent — before it is too late.
This will not happen in NK. See NK is not a country. It is a religious sect worshipping Kim IlSung and his son, Kim Jongil. They call him the Sun of Korean people.
This religion is spreading into the South. Whole Koreas will be under KJI. You wait and see. Stupid and ignorant (in world events) Korean people will bring it about.
First we had the “NK is gonna collapse” theory. Since that doesnt seem to be happening anytime soon, now we have the “warlord theory”. I working on my own theory. It’s called “the STFU already” theory.
Suryong is only used in regard to Kim Il Sung. Ain’t no Dear Suryong. Dear Yeongdoja yes.
Izzat so? OK, thanks for the info…
Actually there is some merit to some of this. Koreans do have this passion for cultism, i.e., religious sects and the single-minded devotion to such. I do not think that KJI will ever survive the Christian-based evangelicalism that is slowly coming his way. It is more likely that such will infiltrate the North Korean regime sooner and change it than for the reverse to occur.
Thanks sanshinseon and montclaire for Suryong posts. Any idea where there’s some detailed info on the matter?
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[...] I don’t expect Resolution 1718’s luxury goods ban to have much of a short-term impact on North Korea, beyond focusing attention on all of the frivolous things Kim Jong Il would rather buy than rice. For the longer term, however, Korea watcher Ken Gause, in what is probably the definitive work of North Korean Kremlinology (ht) did a pretty good job before-the-fact of explaining the gradual trends we seem to be hoping we can advance (Gause actually spends almost none of his 50-page paper discussing any real possibilities of North Korean “warlordism,” although he does talk about Kim Jong Il’s painstaking measures aimed at preventing just that). Gause mostly discusses who served on what dead old revolutionary’s funeral committee, and what that may / may not tell us about each member’s career prospects, and those of his proteges and chums. It’s often surprising that this was released open-source, and it’s certainly worth reading for hard-core North Korea watchers. [...]