Cunning and Vicious, Capricious and Childish: An Analysis of North Korea’s Unexpected Foreign Policy Moves

On September 21, during the “Supreme People’s Assembly,” North Korean leader Kim Jong-un declared that “North Korea and South Korea are two different countries and will never be unified as one.” In the roughly two years prior, Kim Jong-un and North Korean authorities had repeatedly stressed that North Korea and South Korea are already two different countries and different peoples, and had eliminated words and concepts such as “unification” and “compatriots” from politics, education, and propaganda. They demolished facilities such as the “Unification Gate,” abolished institutions related to the South, and began referring to South Korea as the “eternal main enemy.”

These moves by North Korea puzzled many who follow the Korean Peninsula. For decades prior, North Korea had claimed that the area south of the 38th parallel was also part of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), and that the North must eventually unify the peninsula. Whether North Korea treated the South Korean government as a puppet regime and enemy, or reached out with a peace-friendly attitude, it had always been on the premise of “national reunification.” Now, however, North Korea insists that the two Koreas are separate states, and that the South—both its government and its people—are no longer compatriots. Compared with the previous decades, this is a thunderous reversal. Many observers of North Korean affairs have been perplexed by this shift and have strained to analyze and explain it. Some suggest Kim Jong-un is downplaying external issues to focus on domestic affairs, or that he is simply recognizing the reality that the two Koreas have long been separated and unification is difficult. Others argue that this is a show of hard-line resolve, while still others say it is a sign of weakness aimed at survival.

Although not without some basis, these interpretations are ultimately unconvincing and sometimes contradictory. If North Korea’s purpose were to focus on domestic development, there would be no need to cut ties with the South while simultaneously declaring South Korea an enemy. The two Koreas have long been divided and hostile, yet North Korea had not abandoned unification before. To say this is either a show of strength or of weakness is also a one-sided reading. These explanations assume that Kim Jong-un is rational and that the North Korean regime acts rationally and according to utilitarian logic.

The author, however, has some views differing from other observers. First, North Korea’s successive leaders and its regime cannot be regarded as fully rational rulers. On the contrary, their words, deeds, and policies have been marked by extreme irrationality, subjectivity, arbitrariness, and extremism. If one views them through the lens of normal states and analyzes their motives rationally, one is bound to misjudge. North Korea is a despotic totalitarian regime operating under a de facto monarchic system. Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, and Kim Jong-un all hold a triple identity: feudal emperor, religious deity, and modern totalitarian head of state, wielding unchecked power at home. Their domestic arbitrariness inevitably shapes their external attitudes and conduct. A leader who is violent toward his own subjects, who lacks criticism and self-reflection, will inevitably be erratic in foreign affairs.

In fact, compared with their domestic recklessness—such as large-scale violent purges, stripping citizens of basic freedoms, allowing famine and corruption, even killing close relatives and confidants—the Kim family’s foreign policy, including its handling of South Korea, has been relatively “restrained.” Even so, whether to maintain regime rule, divert domestic conflict, or simply out of whim and caprice, in dealings with the South and in diplomacy they often make astonishing moves beyond normal reasoning.

For example, in 1950 Kim Il-sung launched the Korean War, which, though shaped by complex domestic and international factors, was strongly driven by his own personality and subjective decision. In the 1980s, under diplomatic strain, Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il orchestrated the shocking Rangoon bombing and the Korean Air Flight 858 bombing, killing hundreds. After its founding and into the late 20th century, North Korea also kidnapped Japanese, South Koreans, and other foreigners, with bizarre justifications—for example, kidnapping Japanese to train spies in foreign languages, or abducting South Korean film directors to make movies for Kim Jong-il. Of course, the Kim family’s extreme actions were not always irrational; many were calculated and skillfully executed—cunning and vicious. In the 1950s, Kim Il-sung allied with China and the Soviet Union while simultaneously purging the “Yan’an faction” and “Soviet faction” within the Workers’ Party through violence. He ignored Chinese and Soviet opposition, correctly calculating that neither would go so far as to strike against him. He was proven right: he eliminated his rivals while continuing to receive aid and recognition from both. Kim Jong-un’s brutal executions of his uncle Jang Song-thaek and the assassination of his half-brother Kim Jong-nam, ruthless and kin-denying though they were, greatly consolidated his rule.

North Korea has also often used violent provocation and “brinkmanship” to intimidate the U.S., South Korea, and other parties over the Korean issue in order to extract concessions. It has repeatedly shelled South Korean warships and island bases on the West Coast, causing casualties and creating fear. It provoked the U.S. in the “Panmunjom Axe Murder Incident” and the “USS Pueblo spy ship incident.” Yet it did not expand these into full-scale war, thereby generating tension, rallying domestic unity, drawing international attention, and winning concessions from adversaries—without risking regime-threatening war. Its multiple nuclear tests served a similar purpose, and indeed achieved partial results.

However, North Korea’s unconventional, radical, and extreme actions are not always “well calculated.” Many are childish, foolish, and reckless. For example, to attract foreign investment and increase revenue, it cooperated with South Korea to develop the Kaesong Industrial Complex and opened Mount Kumgang tourism to foreign visitors. Yet it later reneged, forcibly closed Kaesong, expelled South Korean personnel, and even had North Korean soldiers shoot and kill a South Korean tourist at Kumgang—earning official praise for the soldier—leading to the closure of the resort. North Korea once blew up the Yongbyon nuclear facilities to show sincerity in denuclearization, only to rebuild them later.

Also, during the “Panmunjom Axe Murder Incident,” because the axe used by U.S. forces in the conflict had “Austria” written on it, the North Korean side mistakenly thought it said “Australia,” and, in outrage, actually severed diplomatic relations with Australia (though there were other reasons for the severance as well).

Even during the friendly Moon Jae-in administration, North Korea indefinitely suspended reunions of separated families and blew up the inter-Korean liaison office. All of the above actions by North Korea, from the perspective of right and wrong, clearly put the North at fault and should not have been taken; and from an analysis of interests, they were also a losing bargain for the North.

In the past two years, North Korea’s sudden, fierce insistence that “North Korea and South Korea are two separate states, South Koreans are not compatriots, and unification is not pursued” represents yet another eruption of its irrational politics. This contains fewer elements of cunning calculation and utilitarian purpose, and more of childish foolishness and reckless willfulness. One might argue that abandoning unification helps solidify North Korea’s legitimacy and stability in ruling the northern half of the peninsula by cutting off the South. But the price is heavy: violating the historical fact and popular belief that Koreans are one people, betraying the hope of unification, gravely undermining the DPRK’s founding legitimacy (which was premised on reunifying the peninsula and liberating southern compatriots), and shrinking pro-North forces in South Korea—leaving the North even more isolated.

Kim Jong-un’s moves are not, as some think, a compromise to allow two Koreas to coexist. Because while declaring the two Koreas separate nations and peoples, North Korea has also called the South its “main enemy,” vowing not to rule out any means to eliminate it, and promising to “completely occupy, pacify, and recapture South Korea” in war. Clearly, it does not intend to coexist peacefully with South Korea, but rather to intensify hostility.

However, for the sake of his long-term rule, Kim Jong-un will not actually launch a full-scale war against the South. His radical moves to abandon unification—destroying pro-unification propaganda facilities, abolishing unification-related institutions and staff, banning “one family” South-North propaganda—are self-destructive acts that damage his own domestic structures and harm pro-North South Koreans who engage in cross-border exchanges, without weakening South Korea. They bring the North nothing but harm.

This policy reversal is also detrimental to Kim Jong-un’s own rule. Although the division has long been entrenched and two regimes widely accepted, and many no longer fervently support unification, most people on both sides still see each other as kin, and most accept unification in the future at a suitable time. Especially in the North, for decades up to 2023, including under all three Kims, the Workers’ Party strongly emphasized national unification and liberation of southern compatriots. Whether the approach to the South was friendly or hostile, it never renounced the claim that the southern half of the peninsula belonged to North Korea.

Now, Kim Jong-un’s 180-degree reversal—discarding decades of propaganda, denying millennia of historical reality—will inevitably cause confusion, dissatisfaction, and quiet opposition among many North Koreans, including within the Workers’ Party elite. Although the Kim family has always relied on violence and forced indoctrination to ensure obedience rather than winning genuine support, abandoning unification and treating southern compatriots (not just the South Korean government) as enemies lowers his prestige further and makes it harder to command loyalty.

Although in the future Kim Jong-un may once again revise his stance toward the South and revive talk of compatriots and unification, in the short to medium term this is unlikely. In the past two years, North Korea’s “de-unification” measures have been forceful and destructive. Even if someday the North returns to the unification policy of previous decades, the damage caused by these recent measures to undermine national unity and shared ethnic identity has already been very serious, if not partly irreversible.

The reason Kim Jong-un has undertaken actions harmful to both the nation and himself lies largely in his unlimited power. No one dares to voice objections, criticize his wrongheaded ideas, or risk offending his “heavenly authority.” Living in an “information cocoon,” wielding unchecked power, and relying on violence and indoctrination to maintain authority, he is free to act on whims, including harmful policies toward the South. The Kim family’s history shows that, on a whim, they can act without regard to utility or cost—the earlier examples provide both evidence and precedent—and this also explains Kim Jong-un’s sudden policy reversal.

The many mistaken outside interpretations stem from ignoring the irrationality of Kim Jong-un and North Korean policies, and from wishfully projecting outsiders’ own emotions and ideas onto the Korean problem—leading to serious misreadings and misjudgments.

Judgments about the words and actions of North Korea’s rulers should be based on facts but also take into account the subjectivity of totalitarian leaders. One must analyze motives in terms of gains and losses, but not only in such terms—since under irrational conditions, leaders may take actions that harm others and themselves. In the future, Kim Jong-un and North Korea will continue to make many unexpected moves. These too must be judged in this way and addressed properly.