Good News--Bad News

By now you've seen the headline:

Kim Jung Il Assumes Room Temp

So what comes next?

He paved the transition pathway last year with the elevation of his manifestly unqualified and virtually unknown third son to four-star general status and several other high-level party positions. This would put the qualification for chief executive of North Korea on a par with the incumbent of our own White House. That might be good news for us as a bumbling youth tries to learn on the job. But a bumbling youth with delusions of grandeur and competence in charge of a nuclear (sort-of) power is a tad scary. It might work in a stable and established democracy, but in an authoritarian autocracy things can shake out differently.

We may see a modernization effort and rapprochement with the West and NK's neighbors ala Gorbechev/Yeltsin. Or we might see a frantic attempt at consolidation of power and a demonstration of brutal control exercised through a cadre of loyalists seeking their own benefits. Somehow I think the latter is more probable.

Or we might see an attempt at a coup before such consolidation has a chance to take place. Ambitious opponents with access to a very disciplined military might attempt an overthrow of the dictator. And, that as well, could go either way with respect to the relations with the rest of the world.

Indeed I do live in interesting times.