Discerning the decisionmaking of Kim Jong-Un and the North Korean
regime on issues of peaceful engagement and warlike actions endures
as a mighty challenge for U.S. intelligence analysts and policymakers.
In this report, we seek to inform analysis of Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea (DPRK) leadership decisionmaking. To do so, we
use three discussion papers that were written to facilitate discussion of
an interagency working group. The three papers are assembled here in
a single report. The first discussion paper describes decisionmaking
among different authoritarian regimes, including North Korea, and
the opening up of those economies to outside engagement. The second
paper outlines two different scenarios that might occur when conventional
deterrence on the Korean Peninsula breaks down and the resulting
decisions that North Korea’s leadership could face. The third paper
assesses DPRK decisionmaking about nuclear weapon use. The report
concludes with some observations, drawn from the issues covered in
these three discussion papers, about DPRK decisionmaking and stability
on the Korean Peninsula
