← The Watch Floor with Sarah Adams
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Ugh.
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Welcome to the watch floor. Hi, I'm Sara Adams. Today we're going into what is probably the most dangerous family on earth. Not because they're only dramatic, not because they're only dysfunctional, but because they control nuclear weapons. Over the past year, something very interesting has been happening inside of North Korea. The daughter of Kim Jong Un has been appearing at ballistic missile launches, intercontinental missile tests, military banquets, and weapons inspections. Her name is widely believed to be Kim Joo A. The family has been very secretive around her identity and protecting her from being out, you know, among the press in any way. I want you to think about this for a minute. This is a young daughter. She's not being shown off at cultural festivals. She's not touring hospitals. She's not doing ribbon cuttings at schools. She's literally standing in front of intercontinental ballistic missiles. And that matters. There's a lot of quiet questions, you know, around the leader's sister, Kim Jong. So she has really been the most powerful female figure, you know, in the regime. And a lot of people originally thought, well, she is probably the next in line and in succession until all this strange stuff started happening over the last year. And we've watched this grooming of the daughter. So today I want to break down for you how succession actually works in North Korea. Why being elevated in the system can unfortunately and has turned into a death sentence for people in this family, how there is this family history of. Of purges again and again, and why succession in a nuclear dictatorship is one of the most dangerous moments in geopolitics. This isn't gossip. This is regime stability analysis. And let me give you a framework about how we're going to go about this. So first off, if you think about a democratic system, so leadership transitions are pretty much procedural. You have elections, you have constitutional rules, there are courts, there are checks and balances. Even if you don't agree with the results of the election. It's like the system absorbs the shock of that the whole country doesn't go into chaos. So North Korea does not have any, any of that. And with a regime that holds nuclear launch authority, that stability within this family structure is everything, at least from the outside. From the inside it can look a little chaotic, but from the outside we want to be very clear who leads and who has access to these nuclear weapons. Before we talk about the daughter, we have to understand the system a little bit better because it is so different than what we're used to. So North Korea, which is officially called the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Yes, I know it's not very democratic, but I guess the word makes them feel better. Was founded in 1948 by Kim Ul. So he ruled until his death in July of 1994. And then what he established wasn't exactly a standard government. The best way to explain it is it's a personality cult. And it's a system where you elevate the leader to almost like mythical levels. So there is an ideological name for this. It's called juche and that really is in their mind means self reliance. So that's what it translates to. Now in practice though, juche became this tool and it was just centralized control and authoritarian control around a single bloodline. Here's where an analogy helps. When you watch those shows with like the medieval monarchies and if you're not loyal to the king, it's like off with your head. This is pretty much what North Korea is. It doesn't really align with other like current age nation states. It really is a medieval system. There's an important difference even between North Korea and medieval systems. And medieval systems, nobles could own their own land, they had private armies, they had economic leverage. None of that exists in North Korea. The state controls everything from food distribution to housing to employment. And then of course, as we all know, just even to information, right? No one in North Korea is watching the watch floor right now, I can tell you that much. So instead of a traditional monarchy like we might see in different places in Europe, this is more like a sealed ecosystem. And in a sealed ecosystem, when leadership changes, the entire system feels pressure. Right? There is this unknown about what's going to happen next and all the chips that are going to fall. Why? It's getting figured out. I've never had a complicated skincare routine. 10 steps, layered cream serums, that's not for me. I'm a keep it simple kind of girl. I rarely put anything on my face. So if it's going to go there, it has to do something, it has to work and that's when I notice one skin. Now, it's not the packaging or the hype around it. It's the fact that it was created by longevity researchers. 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Lastly, Bloomberg even highlighted this product in the skin longevity space. That's the kind of science that matters to me and I like that I can trust it. Born from over a decade in longevity research, 1 skin OS1 peptide is proven to target the visible signs of aging. It helps you unlock your healthiest skin skin now. And as you age for a limited time. Try one skin at 15% off using code watch at Oneskin Co. Watch again, that's 15% off at OneSkin Co using code watch. After your purchase, let them know we sent you, and thanks for supporting us here on the watch floor. When Kim Il sun died in 1994, power transferred to Kim Jong Il. And that transition, even if you didn't see it, was carefully managed for decades. Okay, this isn't something that, oh, they talked about it for six months and made it happen for decades. They put everything in place to make sure it happened smoothly. And of course, one of the key things they did is they embedded him inside of the Korean Workers Party and within the military apparatus before he was formally announced to being the leader into actually taking power. So this is also institutionalized, and there's a name for it. It's called sungun, and it means a military first policy. And, and how it works in North Korea is if you control the military and you have the power of the military. Right. You also have all the power you need to be the leader. It's the simplest way to put it. So it's almost like a military dictatorship, but it's on a different level. The military then is the pillar to regime survival now. He ruled till December 17, 20, 2011, and that's then when we got Kim Jong Un. So he was believed to be about 27, 28 at the time. This is how controlled these children's lives are. Like, we don't even have a date of birth. It's a crazy thing. And he was young, largely untested. He hadn't gone through and held a bunch of these roles. And he was even educated for a bit in Switzerland, which kind of made the West a little excited for some reason. They think, well, hey, if he came and lived here, he'll be friendly with us. And I mean, the 911 hijackers showed us that's not true. But people stay hopeful. And when he took over, immediately consolidation began. And when we're in North Korea and we use the term consolidation, that literally means elimination. Elimination of anyone that could be viewed as a rival to his leadership and his power. When we're talking about these authoritarian regimes, bloodline is actually not protection, it's a threat vector. Let's simplify it this way. So in the United States, if your dad is like the CEO of a company and it's like a benefit to you, you might get a good internship there later on. You'll be a vice president of some wing of the organization. It's a win Win or. But in these families, when your loved one is in power, you're like a walking contingency plan. They don't like contingencies. They don't want someone who could perceivably take over for them or fill their shoes or even become a better leader than them. It's a very paranoid system. And as you know, large levels of paranoia can be incredibly dangerous. Now, when it comes to these type of families, it's like you're almost under surveillance, right? Your enemies with each other. And I want to walk through a little bit of the family history in detail so you understand how this has worked over time and where this paranoia has actually come in. So we're going to go back to December 2013, and we have Jang Song Taekwondo. So he was Kim Jong's UN's uncle, but by marriage there weren't blood. And he was widely believed and was acting as basically the number two in the entire country. So he was like, pretty much the deputy leader of North Korea. And he was helping a lot in the transition period. As the next leader came in, he was shepherding him along, of course, being a mentor in the way you would expect. But on December 12, 2013, he was arrested during a Politburo meeting, and it was televised on tv and he was dragged out. And then days later, we heard, oh, he was executed. You know, reports were then that multiple other relatives and close kind of business associates also were purged. Some were killed, and some were sent to labor camps. Can you imagine, like, your brother takes over as the President of the United States, and then you end up in a labor camp because he's so worried that you could take power from him. I mean, this isn't a crazy world to be living in. Now, let's go to February 13, 2017. So this was at the Kuala Lumpur Airport. And you remember this? I mean, this was just. This is really viral news. It was the craziest thing. So we had Kim Jong Un. So this was the half brother of Kim Jong Un. So he was the eldest son of Kim Jong Il. Right. They just had different mothers. So as you can imagine, he was just as worthy to be the successful. Heck, he was the firstborn son. This obviously caused a problem in a few. Even though he did not want to go back to North Korea, he did not want to lead. You know, he moved and was trying to get away from the family dynamics. And the crazy part is he was assassinated using VX nerve agent. It's a banned biological agent. Well, really a banned biological weapon. And it was Used literally in the airport. In airport. Any of us could have walked by while it was happening. What they did is they paid two women to kind of go up to him and act like they were pranking him and wiping it over him, and he died within 20 minutes. I mean, this is an insane thing when you look at it and, you know, systems get rid of rivals this way. You know, we joke about how the Russian system, you know, people fall out of windows all the time. I mean, this is. Remember your own family. This is him killing his half brother. It's hard to understand this when we live in the United States, because really here, people just lose an election, they resign, some move abroad, some make us suffer through their memoirs. But none of them have to worry that they're going to be taken to a labor camp or be executed because someone has some paranoia around them. It's an insane thing when we look at this. The legitimacy is purely based on the bloodline. Insanely. Especially in the case of this half brother. It's not like the assassination was a punishment. He wasn't wanted. He hadn't committed a crime. It was only a preemptive measure. So he would never try to come back and take any sort of control. Do you ever feel like something is off? You're hitting the gym, you're crushing your goals, you're showing up every single day. Or have you noticed a change in your partner? Slower recovery time, less focus, and a drive that used to be there that just isn't. It's subtle, but it's real. 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Then luckily some reappeared and they were like downgraded. So there's still a lot of questions because again, there's not like a free press in North Korea that's explaining to us all the dynamics or what even caused this to occur. But it's just this constant upheaval. And lots of times it really is based on a paranoia and there's not really like a fact based system or evidence behind these. And unfortunately it's not like these people are going through some sort of judicial process before they're issued things like death penalties. I mean, it's an insane thing. Now I want to go back to some of the optics we were talking about at the beginning of the episode. So we're going to start with November 18, 2022. This is when North Korea launched the Hwang Song 17. And this is essentially their largest intercontinental ballistic missile. And standing beside Kim Jong Un was his daughter. And since then she has appeared at the February 8, 2023 military parade. And that basically marked the 75th anniversary of the Korean People's Army. She was at multiple ICBM inspections in 2023, she had multiple visits to the Strategic missile facility in 2024, she was at banquets, seated next to generals. She was literally brass. And I want you to think about it this way because I want you to understand what's happening here in the North Korean structure. The Supreme Leader controls the Nuclear Launch Authority. To put this in perspective, he basically has some sort of 10 to 12 year old child at these events sitting There. So, you know, she's essentially the future Joint Chief of Staff, right at this point as like a 12 year old. I mean, that's kind of the scale of symbolism we're seeing when she is in these roles, in these positions. So she's not being groomed to cut ribbons. She's being groomed to launch the literal missiles. Now, the Korean People's army has roughly 1.2 million active personnel. So whoever commands loyalty to the military, because I told you, the military is absolute power, controls the regime. So the earlier you signal this succession and you get her in front of this body, and they know her role, they know her responsibility, and they know the plan for her future, the quicker you cement what the future is going to look like and you position her to be the succession long before you actually ever have to announce it. This is why you really do invest decades into making this happen. Now, we brought her up previously, right? We have a wild card. We have the girl's aunt or the leader's sister, right? So we have Kim Yo Jong. And she's been very interesting because she leaned in to have more of an international presence. I mean, everybody was very surprised when she was sitting in the audience at the Winter Games in Pyeongchang, because you rarely see anybody from the North Korean regime, especially here, as a family member kind of out in public. She also made public statements during the 2018 and 2019 diplomatic cycle. And she really has spent a lot of time not only understanding elite networks, but making sure she has close relationships among the elite. So, you know, in North Korea, so it's a little bigger than just her bloodline that she's focused on. And it's interesting. This could be showing an early pattern. You know, we have had situations where children get named the heir long before they become of age, and then they need some sort of guardian. And there's belief she's lining herself up to ensure she becomes the guardian of the daughter. Well, of course, that person then becomes the center of gravity. And when you're the center of gravity, two things happen. You accumulate loyalists and you accumulate enemies. And she understands this very, very well. So in a system like North Korea, it's completely a zero sum game. And so what that means is there's no opposition parties who are fighting you. There's no term lim. And there's never really going to be what we call a peaceful transfer of power. You have to prepare for this. And what matters most is you gain control once you gain control and you get the loyalty and even put fear in the minds of people, it doesn't matter. You become the power, no matter who spent 20 years setting up the succession for the daughter. So it's going to be a really interesting thing in the future to see how this unfolds because she is definitely making moves. So as we talk about this leadership and walk through it, I mean, I hope you're seeing how scary instability can be. I mean, it's not going to be something like protests in North Korea. Just a few people here and there are going to disappear. But it makes people outside incredible, incredibly nervous because, you know, this is a nuclear powered country. They are a major enemy with the United States. And you have other countries that also always want to take advantage of this dynamic. Of course, there's China. And the one thing is, is China leans in extra heavy in these positions that we would call of like a transfer of power or a succession because they don't want to see North Korea collapse. They definitely don't want to see nuclear material that goes unsecured. They don't want any North Korean refugee flows into their country, maybe along the border. They might use North Korean forced labor in their factories, but they don't want them coming into their country and being a burden on their society. So you also have an interesting regional security calculus where a lot of people think about the effect to our allies, like Japan, but also there, and then of course our ally South Korea. But there's also effects to our enemies, you know, as there's just this fear of this family instability occurring. So, you know, these authoritarian systems really do look stable from the outside, don't they? We see everybody march in line, the family looks perfectly fine until one of them disappears. But I want to be clear with you today, right? They are far from stable. There are constant issues going on, this paranoia. They're trying to undercut each other, just trying to think who in the future is going to destabilize me or view me as a threat. It's all kind of built on control. And, and when you examine history in these kind of dynasties, everything ends up happening. Even if you put the best plan in place. It all comes down to force in the end. So what we're explaining to you today is basically like an early succession. It's almost like the choreography you're seeing around that. We see a child position besides ICBMs. We see a powerful sister, you know, getting a little bit of that international experience. We see, you know, a military that ultimately, you know, determines the survival, you know, of whatever comes next. And because this is family and there's a power struggle. You don't see tabloid stories on our end, but it is actually how it's playing out behind the scenes in North Korea. You know, there are a lot of risks around this, right? Especially having a nuclear program. There are a lot of variables we have to keep in mind. So with a regime built on fear, any sort of transitional moments can be really dangerous for us all. And we'll keep watching. And we just thought this would be a really great thing to highlight today on the watch floor.