Is Kim Jong-un Crazy or A Rational Leader?

So many people think of Kim Jong-un as a crazy madman, however I consider him to be a rational, but ruthless leader.  The things he does may seem crazy, but they tend to always have the purpose of maintaining his regime’s survival.  Understanding that Kim Jong-un is a rational actor instead of a crazy madman is basically what this Joong Ang Ilbo op-ed is stating:

That the younger Kim is ruthless is unquestionable. But he is not necessarily crazy. If he had an uncontrollable violent temper, his father would not have groomed him to succeed him. His economic policy alone shows him to be practical to an extent. It may be naïve to blame an instable temperament for his acts of brutality and to assume that they underscore the vulnerability of the North Korean state. Such a simple interpretation could distort our North Korean policy.

Tyranny could be his choice. It is certainly his inheritance. Kim Jong-un may be naturally ruthless, or strategically so. It could be a means to maintain power. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin resorted to an infamous reign of terror. Under his command, 5 percent of the Soviet population was killed. He ordered the execution of 700,000 from 1937 to 1938. Such sheer brutality reveal him to be a hideous madman. But such terror was also necessary to build his authority and transform the Soviet Union into a global superpower. Studies of confidential documents by Stalin paint him as a reasonable dictator.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read much more at the link.

Kim does not want to be the next Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi, dictators that were eventually executed by their own people.  Kim’s inheritance is a mafia state which his father Kim Jong-il understood that only someone willing to be ruthless could run.  That is why his oldest son Kim Jong-nam was passed over because he was simply too nice to run a mafia state.  Kim Jong-un on the other hand was clearly the correct choice because he has shown he is willing to take whatever measures are necessary to ensure the regime’s survival.  So Kim Jong-un is not crazy, he just ruthless.