North Korea After Kim

With the death of North Korea’s dictator, speculation focuses on transfer of power and the fate of the nation’s nuclear weapons program. Much depends on whether successor Kim Jong-un can earn respect from North Korea’s military leaders. Military expenditures are estimated to represent about 25 percent of the nation’s GDP; about one fifth of North Koreans participate in the military. The impoverished nation is expected to continue using its nuclear weapons program as a bargaining chip to win international aid. “North Korea will most likely continue to use a combination of tough and soft policies, aiming on the one hand to threaten and deter the outside world, and on the other to try to gain as much aid and assistance as possible,” writes Jayshree Bajoria, deputy editor of Foreign Affairs. The international community expects the US and China to develop contingency plans for an array of scenarios. But the long-term outlook for stability or normalized relations with the regime that abuses its citizens and threatens neighboring states is bleak. – YaleGlobal