Jung H. Pak

Fascinating and informative book from a former CIA operative with deep knowledge of North Korea. I often object when books are partisan but when you are talking about the Kim family in general and Kim Jung Un in particular its hard to not be partisan. Also hard to ignore is that Trump was a godsend to Jung Un who played him hard, increased Jung Un's profile among his people and the world, and gave NK bargaining power in his diplomacy with other countries. I cannot imagine how painful and angering that was for people like Jung Pak doing the hard work of trying to protect America against North Korea. These is not editorial, its hard fact, so what feels partisan was unavoidable and therefore acceptable.

I learned a great deal from this book, and came away with a healthy respect for Jung Un. He has maintained his status as the world's most dangerous dictator though smart gamesmanship. Pak really brings home how easy it is to see him as a caricature, both because he was handed this job as a very young man with no experience, and because he just looks so freaking ridiculous and has a Disney obsession like some gigantic 7 year old. She also brings home how ill-advised it is to believe that caricature. Kim Jung Un is smart, and sly, and has no conscience. There is nothing cute about him.

I also learned a lot more about multilateral relationships between the us, South Korea, China, Japan, and the US set forth in a way that helped me better appreciate the complexities of these relationships and understand that North Korea's possession of nuclear arms is not the only thing that impedes any normalization of relations not just between the US and the north but between any of those countries with any other one of those countries and the north. Every bilateral dance, whether it be Trump or Moon Jae-In or any other leader who is engaging with Jung Un erodes all the other relationships in the mix.

Pak also makes what sound to me like smart suggestions for our road forward with NK, and in doing makes clear how important the work of the UN is, and how important it is to get the international community on the same page. Divide and conquer works for Kim Jong Un and that is bad for everyone.

The one issue I had with this book was her choice of sources. This is not the type of book that should be citing as authority non-scholarly or official sources. There are several times Pak does this, but the most egregious were the several references to Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy. I respect Demick, but she creates oral histories that do not fact check their tellers. This is fine, it would be impossible to check most of them and we can make our own judgments when we read her work, but when that is cited as a primary source in other books we cannot make our own judgments about their veracity or completeness.… (mere)

This book seamlessly blends background information about about the Korean peninsula with its contemporary history and a careful examination of what we know about Kim Jong Un and what we can reasonably deduce about his future goals ad behavior. I have been a Korea watcher since the early 1970s and have argued in print that North Korea's leadership (specifically Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un's father) has never been irrational despite our tendency to see the Kim dynasty and its supporters as reckless, dissolute and unstable. Pak makes the same point in much clearer prose and more detail than I ever have. This is a must read book for policy makers, potential policy makers, and all students of Korean affairs.… (mere)