A changing kim-dom

As North Korea enters political transition, its new leaders must face the reality that it cannot depend on the same policies of oppression and military provocation forever, writes Rosemary Righter

Uncertainty now affects not only its external policies, but also the unplumbed depths of its internal politics

TOTALITARIAN states are dangerous during political transitions, and when the country in question is a compulsively secretive, comprehensively militarised, international pariah with a collapsed economy, the risks are multiplied. North Korea’s unique solution to the problem of transferring absolute power is hereditary succession, an avowedly communist variant on the divine right of kings.