North Korea could attempt a series of “low-level provocations” next year to mask its internal and external vulnerabilities, U.S. experts said in a report released Tuesday.
Victor Cha, chief Korea analyst at the Center for Strategic and nternational Studies, and CSIS researcher Lisa Collins made the prediction in the think tank’s “Global Forecast” report, saying the regime of young leader Kim Jong-un is “vulnerable to attacks on its legitimacy.”
“The growing space between the people and the regime, the core elite and Kim Jong-un, as well as increasing external pressure are all good reasons for the North Korean leadership to be concerned,” they said, adding that such conditions “are certainly evidence of its growing vulnerabilities.”
The last thing North Korea wants to do is project weakness under a new leader, the researchers said.
“Thus 2016 may witness the regime pursuing a strategy that is designed to do the opposite, that is, attempt to project an image of North Korea’s military strength and Kim Jong-un’s control over the elite,” they said. “A new series of low-level provocations designed to showcase North Korea’s military capabilities without provoking a fullscale war may be in the offing.”
The experts also noted that North Korean society is slowly but surely changing, with markets playing greater roles in people’s livelihoods and more outside information flowing into the totalitarian nation.
Kim’s purging of around 70 of his top lieutenants, including his powerful uncle Jang Song-thaek and defense minister Hyon Yong-chol, also reflects the regime’s “weakness, not strength,” they said. (Yonhap)
