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Comment by zmanji | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if his son's violent statements toward SK will turn into violent actions.

Yeah, I think everyone will be watching closely to see where this goes.

This is a two-year-old article but it's pretty interesting to read: "North Korea After Kim Jong Il: Four Scenarios" http://www.nps.edu/Academics/centers/ccc/publications/Online...

A mixture of scenarios two and three have long been considered the most likely by many "informed" (a relative term for NK) observers.

North Korea is very skilled at manipulating world opinion to seem like a rogue state. They know very well that their existence depends on never taking action, no matter what they say.

Think of them like a crazy family member that keeps in trouble unless people pony up cash and you pretty much have their entire strategy in a nutshell.

Well, beyond that you have the fact that in order to maintain the kind of control that the regime maintains, they need isolation. This means that they do things to get isolated, so that the North Koreans get only one side of things.

As US News and World Report once commented, threatening the North Korean government with isolation was like threatening a drowning man with a life preserver.....

Excellent way of putting it.

Not for at least 20+ years.

His son is about to achieve one of the last great overt dictatorships in the world.

I bet everything he is going to want to taste that power for a long time before he actually does something aggressive.

That is not to say he doesnt press his luck, make a strategic failure and gets attacked (e.g. not accepting a rothschild-backed central bank)

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