with the leaders of South Korea, China, and the United States and his comments about wanting peace after years of self-imposed isolation and belligerent behavior are an example of dots that deviate from the existing contours; many analysts are left wondering about which dots are now the ones to follow.
Intelligence analysis is difficult, and it’s not intuitive. The analyst has to be comfortable with ambiguity and contradictions, constantly training her mind to question assumptions, consider alternative hypotheses and scenarios, and make the call in the absence of sufficient information, often in high-stakes situations, so that policymakers at the top rungs of our government can make decisions about our national security.
I soon learned that a CIA analyst’s training is a never-ending process. My Langley colleagues and I were required to take courses to improve our thinking and cultivate habits that reduced the potential for overconfidence and complacency in our analysis. Walk into any current or former CIA analyst’s office and you will find Psychology of Intelligence Analysis, a slim purple book by Richards Heuer, who worked at the CIA for forty-five years in both operations and analysis. Heuer’s focus is on how intelligence analysts can overcome, or at least recognize and manage, the “weaknesses and biases” in their thinking processes. One of his key points is that analysts tend to perceive what they expect to perceive, and “patterns of expectations tell analysts, subconsciously, what to look for, what is important, and how to interpret what is seen.” An analyst’s established mindset predisposes her to think in certain ways and affects the way she incorporates new information.
Heuer’s book is pretty much the bible for our line of work. It was presented to us during our first courses as new CIA officers and often referred to in subsequent training. It still sits on my shelf at the Brookings Institution, within arm’s reach. When I happen to glance at the purple book, I am reminded about how humility is inherent in intelligence analysis—especially in studying a hard target like North Korea. It forces me to confront my doubts, remind myself about how I know what I know and what I don’t know, weigh evidence, calculate my confidence level in my assessments, and evaluate how those unknowns might change my perspective.
KIM JONG UN: CRAZY FAT KID OR FEARLESS GIANT?
What, then, are the expectations and perceptions that we need to overcome to form an accurate assessment of Kim Jong Un and his regime? When the focus is on Kim’s appearance, there is a tendency to portray him as a cartoon figure. The over-the-top rhetoric from North Korea’s state media, Kim’s own often outrageous statements, and the hyperbolic imagery and boastful platitudes perpetuated by the ubiquitous socialist art and architecture have all made it too easy to reduce Kim to caricature. The baby fat still apparent on his then twentysomething-year-old face, an unflattering haircut that made waves—so to speak—in the Western press, and shapeless jackets and voluminous too-short trousers that did little to hide his girth only fed the media narrative that this was a kid who should not be taken seriously. Kim has been called—including by U.S. presidents and other elected officials—“Little Rocket Man,” “sick puppy,” “crazy fat kid,” and “Pyongyang’s pig boy.” An article in The Washington Post on December 23, 2011—just a few days after Kim Jong Un took up his deceased father’s mantle of leadership—quoted a neuroscientist who suggested that Kim’s brain had not fully matured. According to this expert, the frontal part of the brain, which is important in “restraining impulses and making long-term plans,” has not quite finished growing and developing in one’s midtwenties. This was frightening news, given the fact that a man with an apparently underdeveloped brain controlled his country’s nuclear arsenal.
Indeed, there is a veritable industry of North Korea humor. The blog Kim Jong Un Looking at Things is made up entirely of photos of Kim, well, looking at things in various locations—a shoe factory, a fishery, a lubricant machine factory churning out what looks like greasy soft-serve ice cream—as he gives his now-familiar “on-the-spot guidances.” There’s Kim on top of a mountain, looking valiantly and pensively into the sunset. There’s Kim majestically posing on a stallion. On January 18, 2016, soon after North Korea’s fourth nuclear test—Kim’s second as leader, and what he claimed to be the country’s first hydrogen bomb detonation, more destructive than an atomic blast—he was portrayed as a chubby baby on the cover of The New Yorker, playing with his “toys”: