The Dear Leader is dead, will the regime follow?

By Alexander Neill, Senior Research Fellow, Asia Studies

Three days after the death of North Korea's dictator Kim Jong-il, the regime has announced his demise. After a debilitating stroke in 2008, speculation had been rife over the state of Kim's health which has prompted wider questions concerning the stability of both the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) regime and that of the Korean peninsula.

Since reports of Kim's deteriorating health surfaced three years ago, the North Korean leadership has twice provoked international outrage following the sinking of the South Korean Navy corvette the Cheonan in March 2010 and the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island in November of the same year. These acts of aggression have occurred against the backdrop of continuing nuclear proliferation by North Korea at home and abroad, after the detonation of its first nuclear bomb in 2006.

In 2008 the Israeli Air Force mounted a covert air strike levelling a nuclear reactor under construction in Syria, the facility was widely believed to be based on a North Korean design. One year ago, Dr Siegfried Hecker of Stanford University shocked the world with his revelations of a modern industrial scale uranium enrichment centrifuge complex and an indigenously produced light water reactor at the DPRK's Yongbyon nuclear facility.

A smooth transition?

One of the core international security concerns for 2012 remains the Kim family regime's leadership transition, the acceleration of which will test the resilience of the elusive heir apparent Kim Jong-un and the overall integrity of the 'hermit kingdom'. While the DPRK's policy seems to have relied on keeping its adversaries guessing and attention focused on its nuclear capabilities, Kim Jong-il and his closest circle set about transition planning on the home front, hence the emergence of 28 year-old Kim Jong-un as his successor in 2009.

One of the most sensitive yet starkly obvious questions surrounding the succession question is whether or not Kim's death will prompt challenges to the regime, ultimately resulting in the collapse of the DPRK. All western experts agree that although desired, a collapse would be a messy affair with the possibility of all-out war on the cards. The ultimate disaster would be a nuclear confrontation on the peninsula dragging in the US and China, the North's only ally.

These questions provoke an institutionalised allergic reaction from North Korea's neighbour, China, visceral concern from the United States and its allies and very often confused messages from South Korea. While a unified Korean peninsula is the aspiration of both North and South, the path to reunification involves insurmountable challenges that most regional players quietly aspire for the cross-DMZ status quo to remain in place. Even some policy makers in the Republic of Korea (ROK) privately admit that the Chinese preference for a divided but stable peninsula is the best course of action into the mid-term.

China would certainly baulk at a reunified peninsula ruled from Seoul which would host one of the largest US garrisons in the Asia-Pacific region. Another possibility is that the tensile strength of the regime is much weaker than we might imagine, and once momentum for change in North Korea has become established the regime's fall will accelerate very quickly, as has been the case with other despotic regimes.

Regime collapse scenarios

North Korea watchers remain polarised over the future of the regime. Some favour soft engagement with the North in order to encourage economic liberalisation, while others maintain that the North should be further isolated. In the case of regime collapse, there are well rehearsed scenarios involving military intervention by the South Korean military to secure the DPRK's fissile materials and nuclear warheads.

However, less well understood is the possibility for prolonged instability in the North if the DPRK leadership disintegrates gradually. The North already suffers food and fuel shortages and it is almost certain that a humanitarian emergency of considerable scale could ensue if the regime fell. There would likely be a refugee problem over the De-Militarised Zone (DMZ) and on China's border with the DPRK, requiring coordination between regional players over the stabilisation of North Korea's civilian populations. Non-Governmental Organisations and UN agencies would have to take an important role in this contingency.

Given the militarised nature of North Korean society there may be the possibility of rogue militias exploiting a period of anarchy in the North, or for splinter groups within the military regime led by former regime elites to mount an insurgency against outside intervention. There is also the question of demobilisation of the DPRK military and reintegration into a reunified peninsula's society.

Outlook

The Pentagon has rehearsed all-out war with North Korea for decades, and most will admit that despite mutually assured destruction for Seoul and Pyongyang, the combined might of the US and South Korean militaries would prevail. Despite all of the best war-gaming scenarios there still remains a considerable degree of crystal ball gazing, centred on provocation and deterrence, both of which have been tested to the extreme over the last two years.

Whatever the international condemnation, South Korea has absorbed significant military shocks in recent years. Questions have been raised over the ROK's ability to react to further provocation by the North, while the North may have been emboldened by its ability to attack the South with impunity. Most experts believe that the North deliberately promotes a policy of unpredictability and irrationality in order to maintain 'escalation dominance'.

2012 will be a year of change for the Asia-Pacific region and many commentators have asked if Kim Jong-il's death has offered a window of change for North Korea. This question may have gained currency in the light of the Libya campaign and the winds of change amongst the despotic regimes of the Middle East. In Asia itself, the Burmese military junta is also now a focus of the same kind of scrutiny. What is certain is that Kim Jong-un will have been observing these changes with concern for his own longevity as successor to the most isolated and provocative regime in the world.

The views expressed here are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect those of RUSI.