to the regime. The assassination itself was a mix of the old and the new—using a chemical warfare agent developed in the 1950s against the target in a public setting, the classic deployment of clandestine operatives to lure two probably unsuspecting young women looking to star in what they thought was a reality show, and having the entire attack and its aftermath recorded by surveillance cameras. It was a scene made for TV, as Kim surely intended.
The attack on Jong Nam was not about just one individual—it was meant to send a message to North Koreans about the deadly consequences of going against the grain. But a less obvious and more frightening reason for it was that it was a test: a test of the capabilities of a weapon of mass destruction, and the international reaction to it.
THE OTHER WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
While most of the international attention on North Korea has been focused on the nuclear and ballistic missile programs, the Kim Jong Nam assassination put a spotlight on long-standing suspicions about North Korea’s stockpile of biological and chemical weapons, further complicating the threat that the regime poses regionally and globally. Unlike the nuclear weapons program, which has been demonstrated through tests and celebrated in state media, other weapons of mass destruction at Pyongyang’s disposal have not been flaunted. Furthermore, some of the components of biological and chemical weapons can also be used legitimately for agricultural and industrial purposes, which makes it even more difficult to assess North Korea’s capabilities and intentions, let alone monitor them.
There have been various reports of North Korean acquisitions of biological and chemical weapons capabilities since as long ago as the 1960s. Two decades after initiating these programs, Kim Il Sung declared that the country had “succeeded in producing poisonous gas and bacterial weapons through our own efforts supported by Soviet scientists in the field.” Various U.S. and South Korean government estimates and open-source information suggest that Pyongyang does have the infrastructure to weaponize biological and chemical agents. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence reported to Congress in 2006 that North Korean scientists and facilities have the “rudimentary biotechnology infrastructure” to produce infectious biological warfare agents or toxins.
Among North Korea’s suspected inventory of potential biological weapons are anthrax, cholera, the plague, typhoid fever, and yellow fever, and its chemical weapons inventory includes nerve, blister, blood, and choking agents. The VX nerve agent that was used on Jong Nam is categorized as a Schedule 1 weapon of mass destruction under the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention. Not a party to the CWC, which bans the use of chemical weapons in war and prohibits production and stockpiling, North Korea has an estimated reserve of 2,500 to 5,000 metric tons of chemical weapons, according to a 2012 assessment by the South Korean Ministry of National Defense, and an annual production capability of up to 12,000 tons. The North reportedly also has four military bases equipped with chemical weapons, eleven facilities for production and storage, and around a dozen research and development installations, according to a U.S. research organization. Information collected from defectors from the Korean People’s Army by veteran analyst Joseph Bermudez indicates that North Korea has around twenty chemical agents for use in chemical weapons, with a focus on sulfur mustard, chlorine, phosgene, sarin, and the V agents. These weapons could be delivered through special operations forces or by missiles able to target South Korea and beyond.
Kim Jong Un in recent years has touted the potential for growth in the biological and chemical industries, further exacerbating existing concerns about how he might use them in a conflict scenario or sell them to other countries. He has been brazenly showing off the fact that Pyongyang is advancing its capabilities. In June 2015, regime media showcased Kim visiting the new Pyongyang Bio-technical Institute. Although state media said it was a factory for making biological pesticides to safeguard the cabbage crop, a close look at the video sparked fears about the pace and scope of these developments. Melissa Hanham, an expert on weapons of mass destruction, studied the equipment in the regime photographs and determined that the facility is likely being used to produce “military-sized batches of…anthrax.” Pyongyang could have legally procured bio-insecticide at a low cost, but “instead, by choosing to illicitly import the dual-use equipment, North Korea is likely using the facility to maintain a latent [biological weapons] capability—or worse—actively producing anthrax,” Hanham concluded. The United Nations in 2018 expressed concern about North Korea’s pursuit