North Korean Policy Elites - Defense Technical Information Center

Northern security, military, and party elites, they may decide to move forward without the Kim
clan altogether. In the view of some, state survival and Kim regime survival may become
incompatible, if the nation were to move from the Gorbachev-like current liberalization reforms
to the Putin-style regime with restored order and stability, pursuing the state-led catch-up
modernization and defending its independent national identity from the South. In order to skip or
leap-frog the “lost decade” of the Yeltsin era, with its destruction of state institutions and
tremendous losses of state assets, the outright removal of the Kim regime may become a
necessary evil for the die-hard defenders of the North Korean state.
Kim Jong Il is aware of the undercurrent threats to his regime and the many difficulties
that lie ahead. He got the message when his closest confident Kim Yong Sun was killed and his
wife Ko Young-Hee was severely hurt in unprecedented car accidents on the almost traffic-less
roads in June and October 2003, respectively. His state security chiefs, his bodyguards, his
generals, his party entourage, his relatives, and their respective foreign connections – all are
suspect. This is a time of rising uncertainty in Pyongyang. The regime is evolving and slowly
cracking. It is high time for foreign influence to start shaping the direction of future
developments inside the hermit kingdom.
IV-56