Kiev
One of the world’s last Communist regimes may be about to unravel. But unlike the 1989-1991 fall of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact puppet states in Central and Eastern Europe, the collapse of North Korea could have far-reaching and destructive aftershocks. Moreover, there is little evidence that any of the major powers that will be affected are prepared for—or even want to acknowledge the possibility of—what comes next.
With the death of Kim Jong Il, as when his father Kim Il Sung died in 1994, the Kim Family Regime, or KFR as it is referred to by U.S. military planners, is doing its best to show an orderly and stable transition of power from one Kim to the next—the 27- (or 28) year-old Kim Jong Eun, the son that Kim Jong Il previously designated as his successor.
