No one batted an eyelid when Kim Jong Un, sometimes wearing the school T-shirt, complete with Swiss flag and a bear, the symbol of the capital, was delivered to school in a chauffeur-driven car. And lets not forget the famine and the drought of the 1990s, or the tightening noose of sanctions and internationalostracism. It even had a full bedroom onboard. Mathematically, this translates to a percentage pass of 24.3%. These assumptions distort and skew our policydiscussions. His classmates wouldnt see him again for almost a decade, when he would appear on the balcony of a majestic building in the middle of Pyongyang with his father, having been crowned The Great Successor. As a scholar of U.S. history before I became an intelligence analyst, I couldnt help but think about Andrew Carnegies famous statement about the third generation in America as Kim 3.0 took the reins of power in North Korea. This is adapted from her recent book, The Great Successor: The Divinely Perfect Destiny of Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong Un. One of his key points was that we tend to perceive what we expect to perceive, and that patterns of expectations tell analysts, subconsciously, what to look for, what is important, and how to interpret what is seen. The analysts established mindset predisposes her to think in certain ways and affects the way she incorporates newinformation. He reportedly urged the industry to be world competitive, praised the factory for helping women realize their dream of being beautiful, and offered his own comments on thepackaging. What would be his approach to the nuclear weapons program that he inherited? The capital city is rife with stylized propaganda. I still agree with the U.S. intelligence communitys assessment that Pyongyangs nuclear capabilities are intended for deterrence, international prestige, and coercive diplomacy, as the director of National Intelligence testified in early 2017. Kim Jong Un absolutely avoided contact with girls, the former classmate said, adding that she never had a substantial conversation with him. The combined weight of all these pressures, internal and external, on North Korea, coming precisely at a time of rising expectations within the country, may overwhelm the regimeunless Kim learns to dial back his aggression. David Guttenfelder/National Geographic Creative. His classmate at the Liebefeld-Steinhlzli school in Bern in 1998, Joao Micaelo, described him as a reserved kid who could be temperamental and was obsessed with basketball, especially Michael Jordan. He went by the name of Pak Chol and teachers were told he was the son of North Korean diplomats. The few friends who went to his apartment loved watching his action films, especially those featuring Jackie Chan or the latest James Bond. Democracy is part of our being here in Switzerland, Riesen said. Kims overseas schooling gave him a good understanding of Western values whether or not he cared. He is the son of Kim Jong-il and companion Ko Yong-hui, who died in 2004.He was educated at the International School of Berne with younger brother Kim Jong Un. In addition to the beauty industry, the vision of economic development that Kim has been promoting includes ski resorts, a riding club, skate parks, amusement parks, a new airport, and a dolphinarium, perhaps because he considers these as markers of a modern state. And his rule through terror and repressionagainst the backdrop of that pastel wonderland of waterparksmeans that the terrorized and repressed will continue to feed Kims illusions and expectations, his grandiose visions of himself and North Koreasdestiny. When he was announced as his fathers heir in 2010, some analysts hoped that, having spent four years in Switzerland during his formative teenage years, Kim Jong Un would be a more open-minded leader of North Korea. They are also meant to deliver on his promise to improve the peoples livesas part of his byungjin policy of developing both the economy and nuclear weapons capabilitiesand to attract foreigntourists. He joined his older brother at the International School of Berne, a private, English-language school attended by the. Kim Jongun has overseen four nuclear tests and debuted ballistic missiles of various ranges, launched from multiple locations. At the same time, international pressure on North Korea has never been greater. He wore NBA jerseys, had a massive collection of expensive Nike shoes and wore fancy tracksuits, never jeans, as jeans were a sign of hated capitalism. Lets make sure hes learning the rightlessons. In November 2017, North Korea tested intercontinental ballistic missiles with a potential reach of 8,000 milesputting the entire United States inrange. Kim is however harnessing the nostalgia for his grandfathers era, before the 1990s famine and the collapse of the Soviet Union and the resulting termination of aid. While Kim has avidly pursued nuclear weapons, he is also, in accord with his announced policy of byungjin, deeply invested in improving the North Korean economycertainly a tall order given the gravity of internal changes, the weight of sanctions, and Beijings willingness to apply stronger pressure than we have seen before. It is clear that he sees the program as vital to the security of his regime and his legitimacy as the leader of North Korea. Thanks for contacting us. Two months later in February 2013just a little over a year into Kims ruleNorth Korea conducted its third nuclear test, and Kimsfirst. Although Kim is aggressive, he is not reckless or a madman. In fact, he has been learning how and when to recalibrate. Captured on camera, the attack occurred in Malaysias airport, and images of Jong-nams gruesome death were circulated around theworld. The last six years have also seen Kim dotting the North Korean landscape with ski resorts, water parks, and high-end restaurants to showcase the countrys modernity and prosperity to internal and external audiences. He was quiet but he was also decisive, Micaelo said. But these formative years, of which this is the most complete account to date, might have had the opposite effect on the future leader. For him and his generation, people who came of age in a nuclear North Korea, the idea of disarming is probably an alien concept, an artifact of a distant pre-modern time that they see no advantage to revisiting, especially given the Trump administrations hints about preventive war and the presidents own tweets threatening fire and fury against Kim and military solutions [that] are now fully in place, locked andloaded., Dusk falls on Pyongyang, where three generations of Kims have ruled since the countrys founding in 1948. A number of recent actions have the potential to squeeze North Koreas ability to earn hard currency for the regime to fund its economic and military goals, including: recent U.N. Security Council resolutions, such as the latest UNSCR 2397 in response to North Koreas ICBM test in November; successful U.S. efforts to compel countriesincluding Chinato cut off trade and financial links with North Korea; and President Trumps September 21, 2017 executive order imposing new sanctions on North Korea (and authorizing broad secondary sanctions). The illness could also prove terminal for Kim Jong Uns guardians, his maternal aunt and uncle. If we unpack this comparison, we can envision how deeply Kim Jong-un might have been affected by the death of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi. Kims teacher at the Liebefeld school, Michel Riesen, remembered Kim as a good-natured 14-year-old with a sense of humor. Amazon, He got along with his classmates, though he struggled with the Swiss-German dialect spoken in Bern and could sometimes be explosively competitive on the basketball court, said another former classmate, Marco Imhof. Kitante Primary School | Kampala Contemporary reports described how Qaddafi was captured, hacked and beaten by a mob, shirtless and bloody, his body then stored in afreezer. He always wore the same outfit for basketball: an authentic Chicago Bulls top with Michael Jordans number23and Bulls shorts and his Air Jordan shoes. He had been to Paris to see an NBA exhibition game and had photos of himself standing with Toni Kukoc of the Chicago Bulls and Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers. David Guttenfelder/National Geographic Creative. Apple, As I have written elsewhere, we can still test Kims willingness to pursue a different course and shift his focus toward moves that advance denuclearization. For most people, what follows is a long process of dethronement, as His Majesty the Child confronts the ever more obvious and humbling truth. Instead, Kim Jong Uns mother and aunt soon saw that basketball had become an addiction, toothe boy was sleeping with his basketball in his bedand one that came at the expense of his studies. But he may be reaching a critical point where he has to make a strategic choice. We've received your submission. Under this identity, Kim Jong Un settled in Liebefeld, where the architecture is more 70s concrete block than Alpine village. Of course, Kim still has enormous power and, like his father and grandfather, the willingness to hold onto it through extreme brutality. We should also intensify pressure on the regime through information penetration, raising public awareness of Pyongyangs human rights violations, and create a credible, alternative vision for a post-Kim era to encouragedefections. Their friends would come over, and I would make them snacks. However, when the focus is on the frighteningly rapid pace and advancement of North Koreas cyber, nuclear, and conventional capabilities, Kim is portrayed as a ten-foot-tall giant with untold and unlimited power: unstoppable, undeterrable,omnipotent. It could also be on track to have up to 100 nuclear weapons and a variety of missileslong-range, road-mobile, and submarine-launchedthat could be operational as early as 2020. Top-of-the-line personal computers used floppy disks and ran on MS-DOS. David Guttenfelder/National Geographic Creative. By portraying Kim Jong-un as a hands-on leader who personally ordered the rocket launch from a satellite command center, the state media framed their new leader as bold and action-oriented even in the face of widespread international censure. As Mark Bowden wrote in a 2015 VanityFair profile, At age five, we are all the center of the universe. In response to the death, South Korea convened a National Security Council meeting as the country put its military and civil defense on high alert, Japan set up a crisis management team, and the White House issued a statement saying that it was in close touch with our allies in South Korea and Japan. Back in Langley, I remember being watchful for any indications of instability, as I began to develop my thinking on what was happening and where North Korea might be headed under the newly named leader. In North Korea, jeans are a symbol of the despised capitalists. Theres an old tale that Korean mothers, North and South, like to tell their children: If you play basketball, youll grow taller. His ball was also top of the line: a Spalding with the official mark of the NBA. Even as we parse every statement issued by North Korea, the countrys media content, the satellite imagery of its infrastructure, the state-sponsored videos, and the testimonies of defectors, we must remember that Kim is watching us as much as we are watching him. Even the girl whom he had kicked and spat at conceded that he thawed over time as he became more sociable. So after nightfall on Sunday, May 17, Kim Jong Uns aunt and uncle packed their three children into a taxi and went to the U.S. Embassy. In the six years since, Kim has collected a number of honorifics, cementing his position as North Koreas leader. The pair soon became close, bonding because of their seat placement but also because neither was particularly academic. Heuer, who worked at the CIA for 45 years in both operations and analysis, focused his book on how intelligence analysts can overcome, or at least recognize and manage, the weaknesses and biases in our thinking processes. They enjoyed living in Europe and having money. Pupils walk around the school compound during break time at Kitante Primary School in Kampala, Uganda Monday, Jan. 10, 2022. He may well be haunted by a very real fear of the consequences of unilateraldisarmament. To find out more about what the young North Korean learned in school, I took the bus to Koniz one day and visited the municipality office. It has also reinforced Kims role in advancing these nuclear capabilities, further solidifying his authority over their use. It simultaneously underestimates and overestimates Kims capabilities, conflates his capabilities with his intentions, questions his rationality, or assumes his possession of a strategic purpose and the means to achieve his goals. Yes he did, Mar.24th.2022 he launched intercontinental ballistic Missile tht flew 1,090Km in 1hr:and 7Minutes at top altitude of 6,248Km before it fall into East sea. The film came out in 1997, while Kim Jong Un was in Switzerland. So Joao helped him with his German homework, while the newcomer helped his new friend with math. What, then, are the expectations and perceptions that we need to overcome to form an accurate assessment of Kim Jong-un and his regime? For example, in 2014, the regime said that the release of the movie The Interviewa comedy depicting an assassination attempt against Kimwould constitute an act of war; North Korean hackers threatened 9/11-type attacks against theaters that showed thefilm. He joined his older brother at the International School of Berne, a private, English-language school attended by the children of diplomats and other expats in the capital. According to a GQ interview, it began when a Japanese contact sent him VHS tapes of Chicago Bulls playoffgames. When he first enrolled at the school in Liebefeld, Kim Jong Un started in a reception class for children who did not speak German, spending several months learning his lessons in German but at a slower pace with simpler instruction. When one of its satellite launches failed in April 2012, the regime admitted the failure publicly, the first time it had ever doneso. We have to learn how to incorporate new information about what is driving Kim Jong-un and how we might counter this profoundand ever evolvingnational securitythreat. He hugs, holds hands, and links arms with men, women, and children, seeming comfortable with both young and old. Yet, despite all the chest-thumping and bad behavior, Kim is not looking for a military confrontation with the United States. Their family photo albums contain pictures of the future leader of North Korea swimming in the Mediterranean on the French Riviera, dining al fresco in Italy, going to Euro Disney in Parisit wasnt Kim Jong Uns first trip there; his mother had already taken him a few years beforeand skiing in the Swiss Alps. For instance, the same Kim Jong Un who had his uncle and half-brother killed was also known as a teenager for lashing out at his classmates when they spoke in German, a language that he had struggled to master himself. The 12-year-old had a pudding-bowl haircut and the start of what would one day become a very pronounced double chin. Graphic images of the bloodied Qaddafi ricocheted around the world. The plane, which bore the tail number P882, was for VIPs only. Kim Jong Un, 38, turned out to be a tyrannical dictator like his father and grandfather and hes still mysterious. Kim has been calledand not just by our presidentRocket Man, short and fat, a crazy fat boy, and Pyongyangs pig boy. A New Yorker cover from January 18, 2016, soon after North Koreas fourth nuclear test, portrayed him as a chubby baby, playing with his toys: nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and tanks. All of us speak multiple languages and many of the kids of the elite families travel a lot and live outside the country when they can, Lee, who now lives in Washington, DC, told The Post. Still, the death wasjarring. As North Korean defector Thae Yong-ho recently said in testimony to the U.S. Congress, this access to information about how the world outside North Korea lives is beginning to have a real impact: While on the surface the Kim Jong-un regime seems to have consolidated its power through [a] reign of terror there are great and unexpected changes taking place within NorthKorea..