Sunday, September 10, 2006

Getting through to Kim Jong-il: U.S. psychology expert

Breaking North Korean's leader Kim Jong-il and making him understand that he personally stands to gain from listening to the international community is a key to curbing the danger posed by the closed, communist regime, a former U.S. intelligence analyst says.

Dr. Jerrold Post, professor of political psychology and international affairs at George Washington University, said Pyongyang's missile launches last month were motivated by "defensive aggression." Dr. Post had been with the Central Intelligence Agency for 21 years where he founded and directed the Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior, a behavioral science unit providing assessments of foreign leaderships and decision-making for the U.S. president and officials.

[Dr. Post describes Kim] as a micromanager preoccupied with minute details and as a narcissist who lacks empathy for the sufferings of his own people and understanding of whom he sees as adversaries, such as the U.S. "I believe that both the development of nuclear capability and the threat of the long-range missile represent his attempts to have a way of deterring what he sees as threats from the West," Post told Yonhap in a telephone interview.

In his book, Post said the only diplomatic stance that will deter Kim is one based on his self-interest. "He will regularly be calculating, 'What's in it for me and my senior leaders? What can we get away with?' "

[Yonhap News]

No comments: