The Last Days of Kim Jong-il: The North Korean Threat in a Changing Era

by Bruce E. Bechtol Jr.

North Korea has remained a thorn in the side of the United States ever since its creation in the aftermath of the Korean conflict of 1950–1953. Crafting a foreign policy that effectively deals with North Korea, while still ensuring stability and security on the Korean Peninsula—and in Northeast Asia as a whole—has proved very challenging for successive American administrations. In the wake of ruler Kim Jong-il’s death in December 2011, analysts and policymakers continue to speculate about the effect his last years as leader will have on the future of North Korea.

Bruce Bechtol, Jr. contends that Kim Jong-il’s regime (1994–2011) exacerbated the threats that North Korea posed, and still poses, to the world. Bechtol explains how North Korea presents important challenges on five key its evolving conventional military threat, its strategy in the Northern Limit Line (NLL) area, its nuclear capabilities, its support for terrorism, and its handling of the succession process.

Bechtol’s analysis clears up the persistent mystery of how Kim Jong-il’s dysfunctional government in its final years was able to persist in power while both presenting a grave danger to its neighbors and setting the stage for the current government. This work addresses issues important for policymakers and academics who must deal with those in power in North Korea.

240 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2013

Reviews

[Henry Davis IV · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this book's topic is both timely and the information contained within it quite accurate and well resourced, the author could have gone into more detail about how he came to his predictions about North Korea's future options. It is common knowledge that knowing what is happening in arguably the world's most opaque society is difficult at best, but even a best guess should be based on some logical assertion(s) and tangible evidence. Still, I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in North East Asian affairs or who is unfamiliar with North Korea's support for rogue regimes from Africa and South America to the Middle East.

[Peter Kálnai · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was published in April 2013, so the author had no chance to foresee important events that followed and solved the questions around the power transfer, for example the assassination of Kim Jong-nam, the completion of North Korean nuclear force and new capabilities of Reconnaissance Bureau to operate in cyber space. Still, the content of the book is well researched and contains many references to news and reports from those days.

[Coinmanj · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title is a little misleading, I was expecting more of "last year of his life" kind of book. Instead it focuses on his life with relatively few pages devoted to the events surrounding his death. Still worth reading.