December 17 was already an important milestone for the North Korean regime: It’s the day the “Dear Leader,” Kim Jong-il, died in 2011, opening the way for his son Kim Jong-un to succeed him as absolute dictator. That anniversary was marked Wednesday with commemorations to signal the end of a traditional three-year period of mourning and the emergence of Kim Jong-un as a leader in his own right.

Now December 17 will be considered doubly auspicious, because that was the day that Sony, acting in response to North Korean threats, decided to pull The Interview, a raunchy comedy whose centerpiece is an assassination plot against none other than Kim Jong-un. This constitutes the first major foreign policy victory of Kim Jong-un’s brief reign and establishes a dangerous precedent that is likely to make North Korea an even bigger menace than it is today.