During the 1990s, it was the unchallenged consensus of the pundits that North Korea was about to collapse. But when it defied all odds, surviving the breakup of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall, a famine, China’s reform and opening, and then the death of Kim Il-sung, the regime took on an aura of invincibility. The successful transition to the third generation is yet another sign of the durability of the Kim dynasty.
