A Second Korean War: Why the World Isn't Ready (And How Millions Would Die)

If war erupted as a result of a U.S. surgical strike on North Korean nuclear and missile facilities, and Beijing chose to honor its defense treaty commitment to its North Korean ally, the results on the global economy would be devastating. The label of the North Korean state as a Marxist-Leninist regime, even of the particularly repressive Maoist Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution variety, is a misnomer. North Korea is a dynastic autocracy, ruled by a semidivine Kim family with absolute power over both the inner court and the general populace in a way comparable to a Henry Tudor or a Caesar. Even family members who fall into disrepute are not beyond bloody retribution. Just as a Korean king once sentenced his errant crown prince son to die in a rice box of starvation in the sweltering sun, so too Kim Jong-un recently struck down his own half brother with an internationally banned chemical weapon.(This originally appeared in 2017 and is being republished due to reader interest.)The fanaticism of the North Korean public, in its devotion to its leader, is not some Broadway-like drama of feigned affectation. A visit to North Korea and discussion with members of the public at large revealed a clear devotion to the Kims. Implied was a willingness to die in defense of the juche philosophy and the great leader and his bloodline. North Korea, for almost four decades a colony of imperial Japan, has seemingly absorbed the kamikaze-like death wish of those pilots who once made a last-ditch suicidal stand to die for the emperor.

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