What failure of the warship teaches us about the Kim Jong Un regime

When North Korea’s new warship joined the sea during his launch last month, he made international titles. News Organizations followed every development, from its successful redirection to his Recovery last FridayS

But why did this interest, given that there were no casualties and the damage to the body seemed relatively insignificant?

The intrigue has less in common with the failure itself and more with how Kim Jong Win reacts.

Kim immediately denounces failure as a “criminal act” that “cannot be tolerated”, saying that he has damaged the “dignity” of the country. He ordered that the ship be restored immediately and the responsible ones should be punished. Subsequently, four party officials were arrested.

This fierce outburst, followed by the quick repair of the ship, teaches us a lot about the North Korean regime, whose moves are often so difficult to decipher.

First, it reveals how serious North Korea is for the construction of a nuclear armed fleet.

Although there is a nuclear arsenal that grows in size and sophistication, and a huge standing army, the North Korea Navy is considered a much more nine than those of its enemies – South Korea, Japan and the United States – who have some of the most powerful naval fleets in the world.

“Kim Jong Un believes that nuclear weapons are the only way he can protect his country, and yet everything he has in the sea is an old submarine and some small ships to support,” said Choi Il, a retired captain of the South Korean fleet.

Therefore, almost since the beginning of its reign, Kim prioritized the construction of a modern and powerful fleet, equipped with nuclear weapons.

This warship is a key first step towards this purpose. This is one of the two destroyers that North Korea has built in the last year, the first of which has successfully started in April. Weighing 5,000 tonnes, they are the largest warships that North Korea has and are able to shoot short-distance nuclear missiles in theory.

According to G -N Choi, who is now heading the South Korea Submarine Institute, it is extremely rare for a destroyer of this class to roll over during construction and launch, given the modern technology necessary to build one.

Therefore, this would be a “very disturbing incident” about Kim Jong Un, he said as “emphasizes the restrictions on North Korea’s shipbuilding.”

Even worse, this leading project failed before his eyes. Kim attended the ship’s launch ceremony with his daughter and a crowd of viewers.

“North Korea is obsessed with its display. I imagine that they have planned a whole series of performances, so, of course, Kim couldn’t help but clear,” added G -n Choi.

But experts in North Korea’s propaganda believe that there is much more about the outbreak of Kim Jong Un than the harsh anger and humiliation.

The choice to publish the restriction of the way he made is a deliberate political strategy, they say, and show that Kim is moving away from the regime’s tendency to conceal the unpleasant truths.

Rachel Mining Lee of the Washington -based incentive Center, which has analyzed North Korean propaganda for decades, explained how this became a major pillar of Kim’s propaganda strategy.

Before Kim comes to power and even in the first years of his rule, the regime will hide everything negatively as a way of controlling the story.

But as the information began to spread more free in North Korea, it became more difficult to conceal such major incidents.

“The leadership decided it was almost stupid to try to hide what people already know, and much more effectively show people that they are dealing with problems,” said G -Lee.

“Now, when there is a problem, you publish it, you call responsible and demonstrate to people that if you do not do your job, you will be held accountable. And thus informs everyone that the government and leadership are doing their jobs well.”

In the case of the warship, this strategy seems to have worked remarkably effectively. The repairs were completed before the graphics in just over three weeks, refuting the expectations of naval experts.

“Rapid resumption shows how even failure can become political success,” says Kim Dong-Yup, an associate professor at the University of North Korean research in Seoul.

But he and others say that Kim used this incident not only to design success, but also to strengthen people’s loyalty to the regime and his ideology – another consistent characteristic of his management.

The ship was overcome when it was fired from the harness into the sea – a complex marine maneuver – and part of the bow crashed into the launch ramp. But instead of presenting this as a technical failure, Kim Jong Un said the incident was caused by “absolute negligence and irresponsibility”.

In contrast, he praised a worker who died during the construction of the ship for “investing blood and sweat” into the project.

“They have made his death a symbol of devotion to strengthen people’s loyalty,” said Professor Kim Dong-Yup.

Instead of presenting Kim Jong -un as an infallible God, as was the case with his father and grandfather, they raised the loyal worker, he said. “This is a big change in North Korea’s governing technique and shows Kim Jong Un’s amazing ability to adapt and control the story.”

The biggest absorption of G -Ja Lee, an expert in propaganda, is that “the North Koreans are achieving everything they have set out.”

“They set this goal to have a nuclear armed fleet and now demonstrate that they are about to achieve this.”

No one thought he could build the destroyers in a little over a year or repair this damage in less than a month, but they have, added Mrs. Lee, like them with her nuclear and rocket program, despite the original skepticism in the world.

The captain of the retired Navy G -N Choi agreed. “People can look at this episode and laugh and think,” Oh, North Korea is so far back, “but they make significant progress,” he said.

The most concerned, to say that he and others are that Kim Jong Un intends to transform the Navy from the one who is limited to patrolling his own seas into one that will be able to sail on the world’s oceans and shoot preventive nuclear strikes.

“We have to be vigilant and prepare accordingly,” he said.

Additional reporting from Hosu Lee and Leehyun Choi.