Portrait of the tyrant as a young director.

There’s Hitler’s collaboration with Leni Reifenstahl on Triumph of the Will, of course — he collaborated and starred in the movie, and was an executive producer. Who needs the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and mawkish watercolors when you can participate in the creation of a groundbreaking work of cinema? Stalin, too, dabbled in movies, keeping an eye on the production of Sergei Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible movies. He also made socialist realism the official artistic movement of the Soviet State with a declaration entitled “On the Reconstruction of Literary and Art Organizations” in 1932. Saddam Hussein wrote cheesy historical romance novels that were meant to be metaphors for his own reign. Ferdinand Marcos hired actress Dovie Beams to play his love interest in a movie about his war exploits, had an affair with her that produced a sex tape scandal (which became an excuse to crack down on his political opposition). Before he ruled Egypt, Hosni Mubarak apparently cameoed in an Egyptian movie, Farewell at Dawn. A critical point in Juan Peron’s rise to power in Argentina was the fundraising efforts he lead in relief of the San Juan earthquake, which happened in collaboration with the country’s creative industry.

Cracking down on artists, and treating their speech as if it functions in the same way as other political speech is a first-level realization for tyrants. If you truly acknowledge and appreciate the particular power art has, of course you want to exploit it to your own ends. And if you’re creating a cult of personality or a cult of the state, it makes sense that you want your people to believe that joy and uplift emanates from the Leader and from the state. This is a reason that dictatorial art is bad, or sentimental: because it’s premised on an idea that isn’t true, that isn’t even really plausible.

Making movies about your own greatness, your historical roots, your role in upholding distinctly Filipino values, doesn’t actually make it so. Providing temporary distractions from the miseries you cause your people doesn’t ameliorate those miseries, or cause them not to matter. Vaclav Havel’s art worked in the opposite direction, becoming a crucible for refining the ideas and principles that informed his dissent, and later his governance. Unsurprisingly, truth makes for more humane politics, and for better art.

Kim Jong Un

Within hours of the announcement on Monday of his father’s death, North Korea’s ruling Workers Party released a statement calling on the nation to unite “under the leadership of our comrade Kim Jong-un.”

The younger Mr. Kim was also named head of the committee that will oversee his father’s funeral on Dec. 28 — a move that some analysts interpreted as evidence that the transfer of power to the son was proceeding smoothly, at least in the first days.

But Kim Jong Un, whose rank was officially upgraded from “Brilliant Comrade” to “Great Successor,” remains largely a mystery. Secretive to the core, even Kim Jong Un’s exact age is unknown — he’s thought to be in his late 20s, which would make him the youngest ruler ever of a nuclear-armed nation. He attended boarding school in Switzerland for a few years under an assumed name, and likes basketball, particularly the Chicago Bulls and L.A. Lakers.

The younger Kim only emerged from obscurity in October of last year, when his father, with approval of the ruling Workers’ Party, named him as successor. Since then, Kim Jong Un accompanied his father on tours giving “guidance” to factory workers and other public events like military parades and massive state-organized dance festivals. But some think the short period of public visibility for the younger Kim — he reportedly was only groomed for three years — may indicate a potential weakness in his rule. On Al Jazeera English television, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill said:

Kim Jong-il was actually groomed by his father to be ruler for more than 20 years. But Kim Jong Un has a long way to go.

One thing pundits seem certain about, however, is that — contra the hopes of politicians for an end to North Korean suffering and regime change — things are unlikely to change that much under Kim Jong Un.

“Surely, one might think, his years spent in the West will have made North Korea’s future ruler painfully aware of just how backward his country is,” wrote Christian Caryl on the New York Review’s website last year. “So does Kim Jong Un’s appointment offer grounds for optimism? Not really.” Caryl explains that the ruling cadre that surrounds the Kims — which is also shrouded in mystery — is unlikely to allow any significant movement in the system. Indeed, Kim Jong Un, according to some analysts, might be overshadowed by his own uncle, Jang Sung Taek, a powerful figure in the Party.

A period of great uncertainty awaits North Korea, and judging by the highly secretive government there, we may never fill in all the blanks about this nuclear-armed mystery youth, Kim Jong Un, and what his leadership will mean.

January 14: Tunisia’s president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia after weeks of mass protests. On June 20, Ben Ali and his wife were tried and convicted in absentia on theft charges and sentenced to 35 years in prison. Saudi Arabia has refused to extradite. Tunisians went to the polls in October to elect a new government in voting that international observers are calling remarkably free and fair.

February 11: Egyptian pro-democracy demonstrations ousted President Hosni Mubarak after weeks of protests inspired by the events in Tunisia. While Egypt faces new rounds of violent turmoil after recent parliamentary elections, the next session of Mubarak’s trial is set for this month.

April 11: Côte d’Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo was forced from power after refusing to relinquish the presidency after losing an election in November 2010. Gbagbo has been transferred to the International Criminal court where he faces four charges of crimes against humanity.

October 20: Libyans joined the Arab Spring fervor in mid-February. NATO-assisted rebels took the capital Tripoli in August, and the forces of Libya’s new government captured and killed former leader Muammar Qaddafi in what the ICC recently said could be considered a war crime. Elections are expected to be conducted next year.

November 23: After months of Arab Spring inspired protests, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh signed a deal in which he would step down and “transfer his powers to his deputy ahead of an early election and in return will get immunity from prosecution.”

December 17: Exactly one year after a Tunisian vendor set himself on fire, sparking a wave of fallen autocracies throughout the region, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il dies. However, there are currently no hopes for transfer to a democratic system in the communist country as Kim Jong-Il’s son, Kim Jong Un is expected to take over leadership.

Of course, while not technically considered a “dictator” or the leader of any particular country, it wasn’t a great year for al Qaeda No. 1 Osama bin Laden, who was killed in a Navy SEAL raid on May 1.

So if 2011 wasn’t exactly the year of the despot, will the trend continue in 2012? A near civil war in Syria threatens President Bashar al-Assad’s rule there; mass backlash against rigged elections in Russia is getting larger; and in Iran, the Green Movement hasn’t entirely disappeared.

Muslim and Coptic Christian in Tahrir Square

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking at the report’s launch yesterday, said:

In the Middle East and North Africa, the transitions to democracy have inspired the world, but they have also exposed ethnic and religious minorities to new dangers. People have been killed by their own neighbors because of their ethnicity or their faith. In other places, we’ve seen governments stand by while sectarian violence, inflamed by religious animosities, tears communities apart. Now, the people of the region have taken exciting first steps toward democracy—but if they hope to consolidate their gains, they cannot trade one form of repression for another.

In February, Coptic Christians and Muslims offered a united front in Tahrir square, demanding that Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak step down. But the show of unity has been short-lived, according to the report, which highlighted attacks against Copts, Egypt’s Christian minority, and condemned the Egyptian government’s failure to prosecute crimes against Copts or redress laws that discriminate against Christians.

Clinton also noted mistreatment in Iraq, where she said the “hateful, senseless” Monday attack on Shiite pilgrims had “no aim other than to undermine the fabric of a peaceful society,” and Libya, where there have been attacks on sub-Saharan African and Egyptian migrants.

While Middle East and North African countries received special attention due to the recent pro-democracy movements and the steps towards more inclusive governance in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, the “countries of particular concern” in the State Department’s report are Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Uzbekistan.

All of the countries “of particular concern” have been sanctioned by the U.S. except Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan.

Recent refugees, scholars of North Korea and South Korean government officials see no signs that the economic hardships are pointing toward political instability. They see no existential threat to Kim Jong-il and his government, whether through civil unrest, political factionalism or a military revolt.

Humanitarian and ethical issues aside, you’d think a person would prefer to be the dictator of a China-style country with rapid economic growth than a North Korea-style one with mass impoverishment. Apparently PRC officials have tried to make this point in Pyongyang, but nothing much is happening.

As I’ve said before, the relevant leaders in the Republic of Korea, Japan, and the USA deserve some credit and recognition for the fact that over the past 4-5 years the very dicey situation with North Korea and a not-so-cooperative China has been managed without anything disastrous happening. But even as Bill Richardson, New Mexico governor and sporadic DPRK envoy, arrived in Pyongyang to try to calm things down, there are new spouts of conflict. And the really sobering thing about the North Korea situation is that even relatively optimistic scenarios that have the conflict successfully managed without war until the Kim Regime implodes aren’t all that optimistic.

And if you want to darken your thoughts on this matter even more, I’d highly recommend reading Colonel David Maxwell’s brief paper (PDF) on “Irregular Warfare on the Korean Peninsula” for the Small Wars Journal. I would reconstruct Maxwell’s argument by saying that people normally think of the possibility of DPRK collapse primarily through a Central European frame. You’re implicitly assuming something like the collapse of the German Democratic Republic and its reintegration into the Federal Republic of Germany. And then from that starting point you’re observing that it’ll be much more problematic than even that problematic undertaking was.

Maxwell looks instead through more of an Iraq/Afghanistan lens. Why assume, he asks, that incoming foreign soldiers will be greeted as liberators? Because the Kim regime was nasty? Well, the Taliban’s nasty too. Saddam was nasty. What if a significant proportion of the population is hostile to incoming outsiders, and what if remnants of the DPRK security apparatus actively resist the new order? He notes that this is especially plausible since the official DPRK ideology is heavily oriented around (often mythical) feats of irregular resistance to Japanese occupation in World War II.

Beyond being alarming, Maxwell argues that we need better and broader planning for these collapse scenarios. That seems wise and all (planning is good), but part of the difficulty is that the political management of the situation would get much, much worse if there were high profile planning sessions about DPRK collapse. What’s more, the government of China seems unlikely to be interested in participating in any such planning, and yet some kind of political coordination with Beijing is crucial.

South Korea attempts some deterrence:

South Korea will swiftly and strongly respond with force until North Korea surrenders if the communist state launches another assault, the South’s new defence minister said.

Kim Kwan-Jin issued the warning on Saturday, during his inauguration speech after President Lee Myung-Bak officially appointed the retired four-star general as the new defence chief following a parliamentary confirmation hearing Friday. Kim Kwan-Jin replaced Kim Tae-Young, who came under fire over the military’s allegedly feeble response to North Korea’s deadly shelling of South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island near the tense Yellow Sea border on November 23.

“If North Korea launches another military attack on our territory and people, we must swiftly and strongly respond with force and punish them thoroughly until they surrender,” the new defence minister said. “We do not want war, but we must never be afraid of it,” he said, adding South Korea faces “the worst crisis since the Korean War,” which ended in an armistice in 1953.

The problem here obviously is credibility. Read Robert Farley, but dwell particularly on the fact that not only would a successful ROK/DPRK war be costly for the ROK in terms of losses, but the curious fact that victory itself would be a disaster for South Korean living standards. Ask a (West) German someday about the cost of reunification, and consider that the task facing Korea would be an order of magnitude more difficult.

One structural problem in the world is that they don’t hand out medals for the wars you don’t fight, and the terrible potential consequences of roads you don’t travel down don’t wind up making the headlines. Consequently, policymakers who manage to face-down tricky situations without getting huge numbers of people killed end up overrated.

So I’d like to say that best on what I’ve read in recent news coverage and also what I’ve seen in the WikiLeaks cables, the governments of South Korea and the United States of America seem to have been doing a bang-up job for the past several years of managing a difficult situation. It’s not as emotionally satisfying as being John McCain and randomly musing about “regime change” and it’s not going to “solve” the problem, but it’s protecting the relevant interests at a reasonable cost. And that, at the end of the day, is the job policymakers are supposed to do. It would be nice if the North Koreans weren’t so bizarre and it would be nice if the PRC were more cooperative and it would be nice if the Bush administration hadn’t blundered so badly in its first four years in office. But you have to work in the real people, and people dealt a bunch of bad options seem to me to be making the best of it.

The biggest scandal yet revealed by WikiLeaks comes from the summary of a conversation between Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg and PRC State Councilor Dai Bingguo:

Regarding his recent visit to Pyongyang, Dai briefly recounted his two-hour meeting with DPRK leader Kim Jong-il. Dai said he was on relatively familiar terms with Kim, because he had met with Kim on several occasions in his previous role as Director of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee International Liaison Department (CCID). Dai admitted that in contrast with his discussion with Vice FM Kang (see below) his conversation with Kim was
not as direct and candid and joked that he “did not dare” to be that candid with the DPRK leader. Dai noted that Kim had lost weight when compared to when he last saw him three years
earlier, but that Kim appeared to be in reasonably good health and still had a “sharp mind.” Kim told Dai that he had hoped to invite the Chinese official to share some liquor and wine, but that because of scheduling problems, he would have to defer the offer to Dai’s next visit to North Korea. Kim Jong-il had a reputation among the Chinese for being “quite a good drinker,” and, Dai said, he had asked Kim if he still drank alcohol. Kim said yes. Dai said he also met briefly with Kim Yong-nam, President of the Supreme People’s Assembly, who invited him to attend the performance of a famous Chinese opera, “The Dream of the Red Chamber.”

For the third time in a row, a WikiLeaks document dump has conclusively demonstrated that an awful lot of US government confidentiality is basically about nothing. There’s no scandal here and there’s no legitimate state secret. It’s just routine for the work done by public servants and public expense in the name of the public to be kept semi-hidden from the public for decades.

Regarding the specific revelation here one can only regret that the author of the memo, US Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, is a Mormon and thus perhaps unfamiliar with the nuances of drinking-related terminology. Is the idea here that Kim is a huge drunk, or that Kim has an unusual capacity for holding his liquor? And is that by western standards or merely by the standards of east Asia’s more modest alcohol consumption? The public has a right to know!

As best I can tell the actually important news story of the day concerns the continued provocations of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. I suppose it’s actually good that cable news doesn’t seem very interested in this story, since coverage would likely be hysterical and counterproductive. Still it matters. And Dan Nexon has some smart things to say about it:

What makes this interesting (and dangerous), is that ROK forces–even without U.S. help–are more than a match for anything that the North Koreans can field. This means that the South Korean leadership has any number of plausible military options; if the South Koreans begin to significantly alter their assessment of current trends, these military options will likely appear increasingly attractive.

Still, none of this suggests an alteration in the basic factors that restrain Seoul:

- Before they collapse, North Korean forces will kill a lot of South Koreans and do a lot of damage to South Korea’s economy;

- The United States has no appetite for taking part in an additional large-scale military conflict;

- Uncertainty surrounding Beijing’s likely actions in the event of a conflict; and

- The significant challenges that would come from assuming control of North Korean territory if the conflict leads to ROK victory in a full-blown war.

These four factors–two of which aren’t particularly manipulable–make significant escalation unlikely. But with the developments of the last two days, I’m less sanguine than I was even after the sinking of the Cheonan–especially about the long-term prospects for a peaceful Korean peninsula.

To me the issue for American policymakers is that it’s really not clear why our troops need to be in the middle of this mess. We have no way of mitigating 1 and 3, and no intention I can see of mitigating 4, so at this point our efforts to help South Korea create problems for the United States without offering any clear benefits to our client. Of course we should avoid disengaging in a way that looks like we’re somehow selling the ROK out in the face of DPRK aggression, but we ought to be looking to involve ourselves less and less in this.

Fareed Zakaria has an excellent column asking what happens after North Korea falls: “And at that point, unless there is careful planning among South Korea, China and the United States, all hell will break loose.”

Realistically, coping with the problem required careful planning and international coordination. Unfortunately, careful planning and international coordination aren’t the kind of thing we’re very likely to see emerge. Realistic talk about unification steps on too many political taboos in South Korea, Americans don’t care enough, and the Chinese government has no real way to be credible in dialogue with the US or Korea.

So when the time comes, it’s going to be a giant mess with terrible advance planning even though the eventual collapse of the DPRK is by no means an unpredictable event.

Earlier this week, the United States announced additional sanctions aimed at cutting off funding to North Korea’s nuclear program and its affluent ruling class. The effectiveness of the sanctions will depend significantly on cooperation from China, which supports North Korea’s struggling economy and denies the international investigation that blamed North Korea for the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan last March. China, South Korea and the United States all support regional stability, but differences on how to respond linger, as another act of aggression from Pyongyang potentially looms over the region. The United States must make clear that stability is a responsibility of all parties in the region, and it should continue to push hard for China’s support of sanctions in order to prevent another provocative move by North Korea.

Pyongyang’s aggressive behavior demanded a strong international response, which unfortunately China blocked using its permanent position on the United Nations Security Council. The U.N.’s watered-down statement in July condemned the sinking of the Cheonan but did not specifically blame North Korea, which Beijing and Pyongyang viewed as a “great diplomatic victory.” In the absence of a robust international response, the United States stepped up its presence in the region last month by conducting joint military exercises with South Korea and reestablishing ties with Indonesia. North Korea vowed a “physical response” to the joint military exercises in the Sea of Japan, but by the end of the drills on June 28, North Korea had not followed through on its threats and even signaled that it may be interested in returning to six-party talks on its nuclear program, though doubts remain about Pyongyang’s true commitment to talks.

While Washington and Beijing both want regional stability, the two countries disagree on how best to achieve it in the aftermath of the Cheonan sinking. The Obama Administration has adopted a three-part strategy for dealing with North Korea — engaging the U.N., strengthening our alliance with South Korea and targeting North Korean leadership responsible for aggressive behavior and nuclear proliferation through sanctions. As part of that plan, Washington imposed economic sanctions on North Korea to block money that could be used for missiles and nuclear bombs and to keep money from Pyongyang’s wealthy ruling class.

China, on the other hand, wishes to preserve North Korea as a buffer state between itself and South Korean and U.S. troops stationed along the North and South Korean border, so it remains reticent on taking measures against its ally. Beijing also fears that sanctions could cause Pyongyang to collapse and a failed North Korean regime would send thousands of refugees into Northern China. China ultimately did not support international sanctions against the North in order protect its own borders and security concerns and prevent a potential humanitarian crisis on the peninsula.

This poses a significant challenge, as China’s cooperation is vital for the sanctions to be effective in North Korea. China’s refusal to support strong U.N. actions against North Korea or to take any meaningful actions against its rogue neighbor is a step back from the responsible positions China had taken in the last year, such as passing and enforcing sanctions on North Korea and allegedly denying Kim Jong-Il’s request for aid after North Korea shot ballistic missiles over South Korea in 2009. Some analysts surmise the North is planning more missile tests and a strong response is needed now to deter more provocative acts from the peninsula and to prevent an escalation. The U.S.–South Korea joint military exercises are a good start, but more is needed on the Chinese side.

Convincing China to pressure Kim Jong Il’s government is a challenging task for the Obama administration, especially as U.S. involvement in the South China Sea and Korean Peninsula continue to irritate U.S.-China relations. China holds strategic and diplomatic clout over the struggling country but does not see North Korean de-nuclearization as essential to global or even regional stability, as the United States does. Nonetheless, the United States must continue to its diplomatic and military presence in the region to press Beijing to return to a responsible path regarding North Korea. The United States must make clear that preservation of stability in region is the responsibility of all parties, and that it hinges in large part on China’s willingness to support sanctions.

The Obama Administration has not given up hope of achieving regional stability through the resumption of the Six-Party Talks. Secretary Clinton has stated that if North Korea could commit to de-nuclearization, the “door remains open for North Korea.” For the talks to resume, the North Korean government would have to halt its provocative behavior, agree to comply with international law and end belligerence towards its neighbors. China has argued that the issue must be solved through “peaceful measures and direct talks” between North and South Korea, yet it prevaricates on a response. And that benefits no one in the long-run.

Every once in a while a western news organization manages to pull something together that sheds some real light on conditions in North Korea, and this week the organization is The New York Times and the author is Shannon LaFraniere. Working from near the border in Yanjian, China she does interviews “with eight North Koreans who recently left their country — a prison escapee, illegal traders, people in temporary exile to find work in China, the traveling wife of an official in the ruling Workers’ Party.”

It’s the kind of story that’s really worth reading in narrative form, so you should click over. But to look at it analytically, the shape of the story seems to be that after the epic catastrophes of the 1990s the state began to allow (or at least turn a blind eye to) some private market activity in the shadows of the state factories and state agricultural enterprises. Indeed, one of the more lucrative revenue sources for state firms was bribes from their own employees paid in exchange for permission to not show up for work, thus letting the briber have extra time for private sector economic activity. This helped stabilize the situation, and also led to some people accumulating non-trivial (by DPRK standards) savings. Then the regime implemented a currency swap that basically wiped out everyone’s savings, and sent the economy reeling again, a situation that only worsens with North Korea’s deepening international isolation.