Counterintelligence

The current brinkmanship in East Asia - even if it is just diminishing due to special dates in the North Korean calendar - is a signal, how strong and urgent the domestic political struggle is going on: There are influential groups which are fighting for a place at the sun, at the Taedonggang Craft Brewery Bar in Pyongyang or in a VIP room in Macau. There are also informal networks which are helping to get a remittance inside and rocket engines outside - to name only a small part of the business. In other words: Society is changing - even in North Korea. The intelligence about it still seems to be poor, related to the stuff you can read or hear from Western intelligence agencies. I tried to describe a scenario where the old values of Juche are eroding and the new one change the system - hopefully: La voie nord-coréenne. Du Djoutché à la ploutocratie?, in: Courtois, Stéphane: Communisme 2013 - 1920-2012. Vietnam, de l'insurrection à la dictature, Paris 2013, pp. 411-420.

In the middle of stupid news coverage (Der Spiegel: "Kim Jong Bumm") one can read about past attempts to kill Kim Jong Un himself. This would have been linked to internal power struggles. Maybe... There are of course internal power struggles and you can watch them even in the outer world, you don´t have to go to North Korea. But this is something which is not covered by the mainstream media. Those stupid tabloids are babbling about Musudan missiles without knowing one real detail or without mentioning one word about the results of some possible rare tests, the roots of this weapon system, the Russians behind it etc. And it would be even more interesting to read about the special units the North Koreans are sending abroad, when it comes to "power struggles" in foreign countries inside of the North Korean community or just in case of "sudden" deaths of North Koreans somewhere in the world... Coming back to those internal struggles: For me it seems that ...