Kim's overriding concern was regime stability and safety from outside interference. With a nuke stockpile and the means to deliver it, he's accomplished that short-term mission. While I don't welcome yet another repressive regime with nuclear capability, I'm sanguine that he's rational enough to see his arsenal for what it is: long-term insurance against aggression.
Now that he has his own devastating deterrence, in some ways things just got harder for him, at least in the long term. Now he has to worry about pacifying and, if possible, improving the lot of his subjects, who -- at least in part -- knuckled under because Kim was able to sell them the story that S. Korea and the U.S. were itching to invade and overthrow the government. That will be a much harder sell in the future, and there may come a point when the North Korean people look around and ask, "Now that Dear Leader has secured us from our enemies, when do the good times start?"
A cult of personality and constant threats can only carry Kim so far. There may come a time when circumstances compel him to pursue a Chinese-style effort to actually grow his economy and provide for his people -- if only to save his own neck.
Now that he has his own devastating deterrence, in some ways things just got harder for him, at least in the long term. Now he has to worry about pacifying and, if possible, improving the lot of his subjects, who -- at least in part -- knuckled under because Kim was able to sell them the story that S. Korea and the U.S. were itching to invade and overthrow the government. That will be a much harder sell in the future, and there may come a point when the North Korean people look around and ask, "Now that Dear Leader has secured us from our enemies, when do the good times start?"
A cult of personality and constant threats can only carry Kim so far. There may come a time when circumstances compel him to pursue a Chinese-style effort to actually grow his economy and provide for his people -- if only to save his own neck.
