Anyone interested in North Korea should read Anna Fifield’s excellent The Great Successor: The Divinely Perfect Destiny of Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong Un. The only problem with this book is its too long subtitle, even though it appropriate in a snarky humorous way.



Fifield’s book covers the reign of the Kims, starting with the beginning: Kim Il Sung’s rise to power during World War II and how Russia appointed him ruler, thinking he would be a good little puppet leader. Unfortunately for the Russi

“There’s a good reason for terrifying the people at the top. Contrary to popular perception, most dictators are not overthrown by an angry populace marching in the streets. The vast majority are removed by insiders from the regime. The biggest risk to dictators is not the struggle between the privileged and the masses but a struggle among the elites” (130). [for more reading on this, here is Fifield’s source: The Politics of Authoritarian Rule by Milan W. Svolik, 2012]

“North Korea has long considered exhortations for reform to be tantamount to calling for regime change, given that the North Korean economy can’t just open up and allow a freer flow of information, money, and people without seriously loosening the Kim family’s grip on power” (279).

Anyone interested in North Korea should read Anna Fifield’s excellent. The only problem with this book is its too long subtitle, even though it appropriate in a snarky humorous way.Fifield’s book covers the reign of the Kims, starting with the beginning: Kim Il Sung’s rise to power during World War II and how Russia appointed him ruler, thinking he would be a good little puppet leader. Unfortunately for the Russians, Kim Il Sung had his own ideas and soon created an unstoppable cult of personality and began rewriting North Korean (NK) history. The brief (but informative and entertaining) history of the Kim rulers proceeds through the Vietnam War and the rule of the country passing to Kim Il Sung’s son, Kim Jong Il. Under Kim Jong Il’s rule, the country fell into chaos due to the collapse of Communist Russia (NK’s main economic prop) and the severe famine that killed millions of North Koreans. Fifield’s book then focuses in on Kim Jong Un, a son of Kim Jong Il (not his first born, which is important). This is when the book, which is not dull, gets even more fascinating.Through many interviews and hours of research, Fifield is able to describe the luxurious (and lonely) childhood of Kim Jong Un (KJU). He was raised from birth to be treated as a god whose only purpose is to lead the country. Servants had to be subservient to him. He was never corrected, he was rarely disciplined (except perhaps by close family members). While the children of North Korea starved around him, KJU had every toy he ever wanted and ate delicacies that only the wealthiest person, no matter what nationality, could afford to eat. Fifield’s details about his childhood and teenage years satisfied my idle curiosity, but what I really wanted to know about was KJU the tyrant. Fifield does not disappoint. The majority of this book concerns KJU’s authoritarian style, how he continues to hold onto and expand his power, and how he is different from his father and grandfather.Fifield explains that KJU has expanded economic opportunity for North Koreans by allowing a certain amount of free enterprise. In a strict state-run socialist state, which is officially what NK is, the state supplies all of the citizens’ needs and citizens work at state-run factories, farms, educational facilities and in the government. There should be no need to earn money on your own because the state supplies everything. This, as we all know, never works. It certainly never worked in NK which was propped up for years by Communist Russia, now by China. KJU knows that he needs to allow a tiny bit of capitalism to work in NK; people are happier if they can make and sell their own goods and earn their own money. This loosening of the economic controls has alleviated NK’s poverty and allowed the people to eat better. KJU hasn’t done this to be a nice guy; it’s just one of his many ways of retaining control of the country. He controls people through surveillance, informants, stopping the flow of information, concentration camps that imprison disloyal North Koreans and often their whole family and propaganda: “The Kim regime had endured for seven decades by trapping the entire population inside the country and repeatedly drilling into them, starting from kindergarten, the myth that they lived in a socialist paradise and were the happiest people in the world” (113).KJU doesn’t just remind his people that they should be grateful and scared, he also makes sure that the people closest to him also know they are expendable:KJU disposed of many of the people who supported him, most famously his Uncle Jang—Jang Song Thaek. Uncle Jang was executed for a long list of crimes, one of which was dreaming the “wrong” dreams. Another powerful official was publicly killed by anti-aircraft guns. KJU’s message: no one is safe, no matter who you are. Not even family. (Although, my further thoughts on this are: if the officials closest to KJU believe that none of them is safe no matter how much they kiss his ass, then what do they have to lose by banding together and assassinating him? Even one man acting alone might be thanked, and the Kim family may even be grateful, knowing that their heads could potentially be on the block, blood relations be damned.) Another good example of this is the fairly recent very public assassination of KJU’s older half-brother Kim Jong Nam at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, which is covered in extensive detail in a chapter titled “The Unwanted Brother.” KJU arranged for his assassination publicly to show other family members and officials that he could get them anywhere, anytime. He also wanted to be rid of an older brother who was a threat to him because he was the first born son in a country that holds first born sons in special esteem.covers the elite of Pyongyang and “Pyonghattan” and North Korean millennials, a group that KJU particularly wants to make happy under his rule (happy young people don’t escape). Fifield explains the weirdness of the on-again, off-again bromance between KJU and Dennis Rodman, something no one saw happening and no one wanted to make happen (not the CIA, not Washington foreign policy experts and certainly not the Obama administration). The Dennis Rodman-KJU romance was arranged by HBO’s Vice News. KJU loves basketball and in particular, the Chicago Bulls. The Worm is a former Bulls player…boom! Love. Vice News arranged for Rodman/The Worm to go to NK with a few members of the Harlem Globetrotters (they were deemed suitably goofy and nonthreatening) and after a basketball game and drunken party (a Vice News source told Fifield: “we all got wasted”), Dennis Rodman became an unlikely source of information about KJU for Washington. The government people were reportedly very pissed off about this.KJU’s psychological state is discussed. Despite our “stable genius” President Trump’s schoolyard taunts that KJU is a madman, Fifield’s research and interviews with psychologists suggests he is not mad. He is reasonably psychologically stable and is believed to be a classic narcissist. All of his actions, which a conscientious person may view as troubling and insane, are not. They are all carefully calculated to accomplish the one thing he wants most: to stay in power. However, Fifield’s research indicates that unlimited power causes biological and psychological changes in the brain. It stimulates the production of dopamine, the feel good chemical. The more you like something, the more you do it/want it, thus drug (and chocolate) addicts and the adage “absolute power corrupts absolutely.” However, the flipside of this is that an outsized ego is extremely fragile and vulnerable so even the smallest criticisms can provoke huge outbursts or irrational behavior. Hmmm…why does this sound so familiar?Fifield explains that KJU has found creative ways of making money via cyberattacks: “By one estimate, RGB [elite spy agency run by NK military] hackers have attacked more than one hundred banks and cryptocurrency exchanges around the world since 2016 and pilfered more than $650 million in the process” (195). She goes over the Otto Warmbier detention by NK and said that it is commonplace for NK to take hostages of foreign citizens on false charges and hold them until arrangements are made for their release. When important political figures visit NK to negotiate for their release, KJU uses this as propaganda: “Look at me! I’m so important that these VIP are traveling here to pay homage to me!” Fifield raises several questions about the validity of Warmbier’s arrest (he probably never stole or attempted to steal a sign) and even though it is unlikely the truth of that night and what caused his catastrophic injuries will ever be known, Fifield’s fact-finding suggests that Warmbier died because security forces panicked and rather than seek medical care for him (which NK may not even had the expertise to deliver), they covered up Warmbier’s serious medical state until it was discovered much later. When NK finally agreed to his release, it presented the United States government with a bill for $2 million for Warmbier’s medical care. Amazingly, Trump hasn’t ordered it to be paid.Fifield’s examination of NK’s nuclear weapons program is the most contemporary (and scariest) information in the book. She traces the history of the program back to KJU’s father and follows it through to KJU’s determination to see it successful—which it is. She answers quite clearly why NK will never give up its nuclear weapons and why it is futile to even try. Negotiators keep demanding that KJU give up his nuclear program in order to have sanctions on the country lifted: “This approach had always failed. It had failed because it overlooked the whole reason why North Korea had pursued nuclear weapons in the first place: the nuclear weapon program is a means to defend North Korea against an American attack” (277). KJU remembers what happened to Muammar Gaddafi—he agreed to give up his nukes, then he was invaded and overthrown. KJU (sensibly for a tyrant) does not wish this to happen to happen to. Fifield also suggests the other problem with dangling economic reform and prosperity, like the reforms that assisted Communist China and Communist Vietnam, in front of NK is: although the Communist Party controls these countries,—there is some competition for leadership roles. For the Kim regime, this is not an option:So while the Trump administration pats itself on the back for making progress with NK because Trump and KJU shake hands and make kissy faces at each other over a banquet table, KJU is impishly grinning because he is manipulating Trump to get what he wants: recognition as a major power player on the international stage and the possible—if he plays Trump’s ego and stupidity just right—lifting of sanctions. And he’ll never give up his nukes. Never.is a superb book. I cannot possibly review all the fascinating details that author Anna Fifield has packed into this book. She writes about the Kim family secrets (suicides and alcoholics and the brother who worships Eric Clapton and just wants to play guitar), the growing drug abuse among the population and its police force, the amazing amount of free enterprise aka smuggling of Chinese goods, and how NK is confused by Trump and spends a good bit of time trying to figure him out (unlike KJU, who I think is Machiavellian and crazy like a fox, Trump self-sabotages and seems to say crazy shit because his mouth and his brain either a)rarely work in tandem or b)work very well in tandem…you decide). If you are even the tiniest bit interested in North Korea (and how can you not be?), read this book. Fifield writes well and with a certain amount of sarcasm when necessary. The book is packed full of information and includes an index and sources.