Kim Jong Un and the Bomb: Survival and Deterrence in North Korea

by Ankit Panda

In September 2017, North Korea shocked the world by exploding the most powerful nuclear device tested anywhere in 25 years. Months earlier, it had conducted the first test flight of a missile capable of ranging much of the United States. By the end of that year, Kim Jong Un, the reclusive state's ruler, declared that his nuclear deterrent was complete.Today, North Korea's nuclear weapons stockpile and ballistic missile arsenal continues to grow, presenting one of the most serious challenges to international security to date. Internal regime propaganda has called North Korea's nuclear forces the country's "treasured sword," underscoring the cherished place of these weapons in national strategy. Fiercely committed to self-reliance, Kim remains determined to avoid unilateral disarmament.Kim Jong Un and the Bomb tells the story of how North Korea-once derided in the 1970s as a "fourth-rate pipsqueak" of a country by President Richard Nixon-came to credibly threaten the American homeland by November 2017. Ankit Panda explores the contours of North Korea's nuclear capabilities, the developmental history of its weapons programs, and the prospects for disarming or constraining Kim's arsenal. With no signs that North Korea's total disarmament is imminent over the next years or even decade, Panda explores the consequences of a nuclear-armed North Korea for the United States, South Korea, and the world.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, History, Asia

417 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 15, 2020

Reviews

[Patrick Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This text does a great job breaking down the history, technology and what we can glean of the thinking and logic of the North Korean nuclear program and how the hermit kingdom views it's strategic deterrent. If you want an approachable introduction to the conundrum of North Korean nuclear deterrence and how we should approach a DPRK that can hold US allies and US cities at risk this is a great read.

I would also point out that if you're looking to get the most out of this text I highly recommend reading Nuclear Strategy In The Modern Era by Vipin Narang and reading/listening to some of the analysis done by the Middlebury Institute on the Arms Control Wonk blog.

[Matias Singers · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've followed Ankit Panda on Twitter for a while and enjoyed a lot of his writing as a subscriber to The Diplomat — especially a big fan of his podcast, which initially got me interested in everything arms controls, nonproliferation, disarmament, and North Korea's nuclear weapons program.

The book divided into three sections, with the first section acting as a helpful historical refresher on North Korea's founding in 1948, the geopolitical theatre surrounding the Korean peninsula, and the three generations of North Korean leaders (Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, and now Kim Jong Un).

The second section dives deep into the technical details of the country's weapons developments and nuclear capabilities, including specifics on all the known missile and nuclear tests — and how the international community reacted to each of them (UN sanctions, diplomatic ties, rhetoric changes, etc.). This section also includes an interesting look at how North Korea collaborated with other countries and leveraged the expertise of AQ. Khan of Pakistan.

The last chapter in the second section deals with the dilemmas of building a resilient command and control (or C2) system for North Korea to have a credible nuclear deterrent. This chapter was a fascinating chapter for someone like me without any prior understanding nor background in this field.


The final section looks at what a North Korea possessing credible nuclear weapons and ICBMs means for the greater geopolitical landscape in Northeast Asia, especially with the current Trump administration and the growing diplomatic competition between the US and China (and Russia).


I thought I was reasonably familiar with the developments from ~2017 onwards, especially with the 2018 North Korea–United States Singapore Summit - but Ankit provides a wealth of uniquely new details and insights from his sources in the intelligence community and many off-the-record discussions in DC.
The incredibly detailed footnotes and references open up a vast repository of first-party sources for the reader to explore further.

[Laura Diver · Rating 4 out of 5]

While occasionally confusing from a chronological perspective and in need of further proof reading and editing, this is a solid study of what motivates North Korea's nuclear program.

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

* Ever so slightly dated, but in ways that don't seem to matter. The world moves on, but only minor details have changed (e.g., the DPRK launched another missile-capable submarine recently, adding to their sea-borne deterrent).

* Lots of technical detail. For good reason, I think, but if you're not interested in the difference between generations of ballistic missiles, this may be off-putting. If you like those kinds of details, you'll be pleased.

* I enjoyed the geopolitical and doctrine bits the best. How did the DPRK come to develop a nuclear capability, and why did they want one in the first place? In what circumstances does the country envision using the weapons? Could the West have stopped the DPRK from developing and deploying nukes? What risks do we face now that the DPRK has nuclear weapons? Is it possible to get the DPRK to relinquish the weapons, and if not, what tools do we have to contain or minimize the threat? And just what does it mean to "have nukes" in the first place? Spoiler alert: just having a successful nuclear test doesn't mean that you're ready for prime time. You need to consider things like miniaturization, scaled production, delivery systems, transport systems, doctrine (i.e., what are these things for, when might we use them, how might we use them, and what do we telegraph to the world and our enemies?), and 'command and control,' AKA "who pushes the button and under what circumstances."

* A touch dry but let's face it, you know that going into a book like this. Panda is smart and knows his stuff. If you're interested in things like nuclear weapons doctrine, nuclear weapons development, ICBM development, missile defense platforms and theory, non-proliferation, and international relations writ large, this book might be of interest to you.

[Tairachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kim Jong Un and the Bomb by Ankit Panda

This fascinating $53 book was my Friday night companion and I learned a lot. It paints a realistic picture of North Korea’s political history, nuclear weapon development and strategy, and how the world, in particular, the US and its various Presidential administrations have viewed and approached North Korea, Kim Jong Un’s diplomacy and thinking behind North Korea’s regime survival and deterrence of “hostile forces” through its collection, reverse engineering, and development of nuclear arms, submarines, military vehicles. 2017 was a truly momentous year for North Korea with its successful intercontinental ballistic missile test.

There’s a lot to unpack and contemplate in this book, and the author, the senior editor of The Diplomat and an international security expert, writes everything in a layman-friendly yet technical way with a rational, impassive manner. Love how at the beginning he mentions all errors are his own - I found 3 typos in this book, likely due to the creation of compare documents of the manuscript which ended up duplicating punctuation marks, words and phrases. I felt “Singapore Summit” appeared way too many times - the media gives too much emphasis to the Singapore Declaration - this book reinforced my view - earlier agreements actually had North Korea make stronger commitments such as the Six-Party Talks and the Agreed Framework. It doesn’t help that Trump created a fiction that the summit resulted in agreed denuclearisation. This is also a book where the word Singapore appears on the page 1 - I feel like lots of books nowadays like to insert Singapore in its pages; I’m convinced it’s a 2019-2020 literary trend.

Some questions I had: Who is AQ Khan? How interesting must it be to be a US intelligence analyst reporting on North Korea? What happened to Kim Jong Il’s 300 staff who were purged? What’s the relationship like between North Korea and its biggest ally?

Foreign Affairs has a good, short summary on this book.

I highly recommend this 2020 read if you’re interested in all things North Korea, Northeast Asian history, US-North Korea relations, or political strategy.

[Peter Macksen · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Kim Jong Un and the Bomb, Ankit Panda has laid out a concise, readable account of the North Korean nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programs. However, most importantly, the book doesn't limit itself to being a narrative history. Ankit clarifies the strategic outlook of the North Korean regime, and the way nuclear weapons fit into this structure.

Kim Jong Un and the Bomb has something for individuals at all levels of interest in North Korea. People with little to no knowledge of the regime's nuclear and missile programs, or why states pursue such programs, find a detailed overview that grounds them well for further research if they are so inclined. More knowledgeable readers will not only find the strategy and theoretical command-and-control discussions interesting, but the book acts as a handy compendium of information on the DPRK's nuclear complex, including its warhead production, enrichment, and warhead storage locations.

If you read only one book on the North Korean nuclear weapons complex, this is an excellent candidate.

[Larry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I try and read everything that I can find on North Korea. So it is no surprise that I would really enjoy a book that all by rights should have been a “dry” read. A book about the technical in’s and out’s of the Hermit Kingdom’s long path to attaining nuclear weapons that could reach the continental United States. The book really wasn’t dry. It’s a fascinating history and story of this terrible yet obviously crafty blood dynasty and the bombs path from grandfather, father to where the world is now with Kim Jong Un.

[KT Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very thorough study of North Korea’s nuclear history.
The Kim dynasty has been playing with the big powers and the whole world with tricky yet delicate adept for decades, in defiance of all the world orders and their promises, yet without any real harm afflicted to it. To me, the history itself exposed the funny bone of the world we live in — if you are bad enough, no one will treat you as a bad boy, but an appalling opponent.
Sad for the whole world and mankind.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent, non-hyperbolic assessment

[Rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the best book about Kim Jong Un we're going to see while he's still alive.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an extremely good history of North Korea and the bomb, though already dated due to North Korea's continuous development of its nuclear arsenal. Ankit Panda does a great job of getting all of this down in one place.

My only qualm is basically that if you're coming at this from someone who follows all this stuff very closely, there's not a lot of new here. But if you need a book to school you up to about 2020 (I believe), well, this is a great place to start.

I enjoyed Panda's look at the C2 issues, especially given that it seems something the DPRK is currently attempting to sort out. That was the "freshest" stuff for my brain to ponder.

If you're a field expert: 3.0-3.5, but certainly a useful source, if you know nothing about all this, 5.0.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

There hasn't been a go-to book on North Korea's nuclear program as far as I know. I used to piece together Wit/Poneman/Gallucci's Going Critical on the first nuclear crisis with Yoichi Funabashi's The Peninsula Question on the second.

Ankit Panda's book fills that void. A fantastic historical review of the progress of North Korea's program with an excellent middle section of 5 chapters comprising Kim Jong Un's "shopping list" for an intercontinental nuclear capability that was arguably completed in 2017...with the exception of a really good chapter 9 on command-and-control systems in the DPRK.

The go-to book on North Korea's nuclear program has now been written.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Analytically rigorous and very detailed. Arguably the best book on modern North Korea.