Kim Jong Un is following a delicate strategy which allows him to keep the power. In order to be able to grasp the concept of his strategy we have to look in the past, where the relationship between North Korea and the USA was not all smiles and sunshine.
In 2017 as we all know North Korea launched a whole lot of missiles: One landing in Japanese sea whereas the other was even more of a banger. It was an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile launched on exactly the 4th of July. This is a direct provocation of the US government i.e. Trump, and goes hand in hand with a cyber attack on 150+ countries which led to some disturbances and chaos. America obviously did not ignore these happenings and due to Trump tweeting about it on Twitter, America has fallen into a state of paranoia being scared of attacks from North Korea who where painted as 'the bad guys' by the media and Trump himself. (Obviously they are the bad guys but what is important, is that Kim Jong Un's bomb threats have caused a massive wave of emotions in the American population.)
At this point you could practically feel all the built up tension in Western media.
But what happened then?
With no apparent reason and completly out of the blue Kim Jong Un changes his entire aggressive attitude and sends athletes to the 2018 Olympics. With South Korea. His arch nemesis. Under a common flag.
No more missile testing and more and more approaches towards Western states. One of these includes leaving the country for the very first time as the sovereign and going to China.
To top it all of he also held a summit with South Korea. With media displays showing Kim Jong Un and the South Korean president hugging each other. If that is not a 180 I sincerely do not know what is. To many people this all came as a huge surprise and was seen as a step towards betterment or as a result of successful politics.
What do all dictators have in common? They absolutely and above anything else love being in power. I mean who wouldn't? They have all the wealth, all the freedom and all the possibilities.
Kim Jong Un is also very concerned about his safety as he has made himself quite unpopular in his country as well as globally. So what does he do to one the one hand to ensure his safety and on the other hand keep all the benefits of being a dictator? Couldn't he just stay relaxed and stick to himself instead of constantly provoking the US and threatening war?
By doing that he is seen as irrational or maybe even crazy.
And this is what actually keeps him afloat.
North Korea is a very poor and torn country, therefore if Kim was to do nothing the country would rise up against him and possibly even overthrow him due to the terrible living conditions there.
So why not just improve living conditions and do a complete makeover of the country? After all it would be a win-win situation for all parties involved.
This is exactly not the case. If the North Korean people knew what it's like to live comfortably they would get accustomed to it resulting in a revolution after having seen what COULD be possible. Kim keeps the population poor and starving so that they can't even thing about revolting because they have to make sure they stay alive first.
Let's recap: Kim needs resources but is not able to reform the country as he would lose power.
It's foreign aid. Very simple but effective. The only problem is that usually as dictatorship has a hard time finding countries willing to help them financially. So North Korea has to intimidate a giant like the USA to do so.
How does Kim do it? Obviously. Atomic weapons. Not even bothering with any other military technologies. The nuke is enough to scare the entire world and make them fear mass annihalation. Kim playing the role of the crazy madman is just the icing on the cake. Having a nuke gives Kim the leverage he needs to actually negotiate with the US. He only has to be convincing enough in his 'crazy dictator' role so that America does not attack North Korea in fear of an atomic retaliation strike.
America and even the entire world would do almost anything to not let this happen.
They would pay absurd amount of money just for Kim to denuclearize so that they is no longer this mass paranoia.
This is what North Korea does every time when facing a challenge:
Firstly a real crisis is fabricated, i.e. nuking the US
Then when the tensions are at its highest point and fear is everywhere North Korea makes attempts to negotiate.
Having the atomic bomb, North Korean diplomats are able to get the most money out of the negotiations.
The US is happy with all of it because they can present themselves as the heros who where able to stop the imminent world war. This is exactly what Trump is doing right now after his meeting with Kim.
This entire strategy is not new and has been employed earlier than now. North Korea already agreed once to denuclearize but just broke their promise.
Even though Trump says after the recent meeting that North Korea will definitely get rid of atomic weapons I think that the chance is almost 0% that they will actually do so. It is their only trump card (pun intended).
Without the nuke Kim Jong Un has nothing to solidify his power. Trump and him being on good terms has been nothing but a publicity stunt to make Trump appear in a positive light and also to keep everyone relieved.
Up until in a few years..
When Kim starts threatening nukes again.
I really hope you guys have enjoyed this post as I really made a lot of effort in writing it. If you learned something new please be sure to state it in the comments or give me an upvote :).
Cheers!
First picture taken from https://www.zdf.de/assets/teletext-dpa-image-nordkoreas-machthaber-kim-jong-un-archivbild-106~1920x1080?cb=1528736672550
