Much speculation surrounds the fate of Hyon Yong Chol, the North Korean defense minister who was allegedly purged and executed in late April, but not immediately removed from all video footage. However, this controversy should not obscure one important fact: In the last three years the North Korean military, political and security police bureaucracy have been subjected to a purge on a scale not seen since at least the late 1960s.

It seems that the recent events give us the first ideas of Kim Jong Un’s own peculiar style of purging officials he considers dangerous, useless or annoying. Indeed, while purges have remained a constant feature of North Korean political life for many decades, the style of purges has not remained unchanged.