I do not plan on taking the second half of the course.

SNA proposal: Targeting North Korean Nuclear Officials

Summary:

Background: A fascinating New York Times article from February details the amount of information that one can glean simply from one North Korean propaganda photo. One section in particular that piqued my interest points out Kim Jung-un’s “entourage,” the group of government officials gathered around him at the unveiling of a supposed nuclear device. I began to wonder how many of these same individuals appear in other such photos, and how frequently. This led me to archiving as many North Korean propaganda photos as possible in order to track the appearances of each member of Kim’s entourage over time, with specific attention paid to the individuals involved in nuclear-related gatherings. Additionally, I began to match names to faces using open-source official DPRK press releases and third-party organizational charts.

Key research question:

Who are the government figures with the most involvement in North Korea's nuclear program?

Additional research questions:

• Which individuals are assessed to be the most susceptible to coercion or bribery in exchange for information on DPRK’s nuclear program (i.e., individuals assessed to lack allegiance, value wealth over country, or desire relocation and security for themselves and/or their families)?

• Which individuals possess the greatest amounts of information of intelligence value on the program (information that can be obtained through apprehension and interrogation)?

• Which officials are high-value targets, or most critical to the program’s success (i.e., the individuals without whom the program could not function due to specialized knowledge/training)?

• Which officials act as the "brokers" between Kim Jong-un and those who are the most heavily involved in the nuclear program?

Time and available information permitting, it would also be useful to map the known DPRK nuclear infrastructure network (to include telecommunications, energy, SCADA systems, and distribution systems) in order to determine how the "non-personnel" network could best be targeted via cyber and conventional strike in order to cripple the nuclear program.

Ideally, the personnel and infrastructure networks would eventually converge, giving a comprehensive picture of the entirety of the DPRK nuclear operation. This network would display links between individuals to one another as well as individuals to operational stages, facilities, and supporting infrastructure.

Hypothesis: While I expect a few members of Kim’s entourage play a significant role in the DPRK’s nuclear program, I posit that those with the greatest involvement are at least one layer removed from Kim himself, connected through brokers within Kim’s inner circle. I assess that the politicians with roles amongst Kim's entourage would not also have expertise on the nuclear program, but would instead be the conduits through which information passes from subject matter experts to Kim himself.

Data:

Open-source research; analysis of DPRK propaganda, photos, and press releases; comparisons of official and third-party leadership and organizational charts.

Analysis of events in and around North Korea operated by the US-Korea Institute of Johns Hopkins SAIS:

http://www.38north.org/

North Korea Leadership Watch - Research and Analysis on the DPRK Leadership:

nkleadershipwatch.org

A list of North Korean government officials and their roles within the bureaucracy. This list would be the starting point for the network database:

http://www.nkleadershipwatch.org/leadership-biographies/

Organizational charts of North Korean leadership personnel like this one, from 2009, compiled using open-source information and published on sites like publicintelligence.net:

https://publicintelligence.net/2009-democratic-peoples-republic-of-korea-leadership-chart/

Methodology:

1.   Collect names and as much relevant data as possible of any and all DPRK leadership figures with an emphasis on identifying leadership involved in nuclear activities (i.e., missile tests, WMD personnel events, missile and warhead unveilings).  Data will include all known associates and information (to include date, location, and significance) on any public appearances. Special care will be taken to address the sources and assessed veracity of all information.

2.   Create network data set to display ties between officials based on role, committee, ministry, any joint public appearances, etc.

3.   Create attribute data set with each official’s title, hierarchical role, office, any known demographic information, etc.

4.   Create two-mode data set between officials and government office to assess connections between nuclear and non-nuclear activities.

5.   After assembling a list of officials assessed to be involved in the nuclear program, conduct further research on each individual in order to assess the effect each person’s removal from the network would have on the network (if any) and how each could best be targeted in order to gain critical information on the nuclear program or significantly degrade its capabilities.

Challenges: The greatest challenge is accurately assessing the credibility of information regarding DPRK personnel. Assigning an accurate level of credibility to this information may be accomplished by corroborating multi-source information (i.e., DPRK-produced propaganda, open-source intelligence from sources like publicintelligence.net, and third-party analysis).

After assembling the network, another challenge would be accurately assessing the effects each network member’s interception or removal would have on the rest of the network. However, I am confident that a number of targets could be identified and prioritized upon exhaustively researching each member of the network using open-source capabilities.