ABSTRACT
During the 1990s, analysts and policy-makers in the U.S. predicted an imminent collapse of the North Korean regime. Kim Jong Il survived. He not only muddled through the economic hardship, but also showed his regime’s resilience. Kim Jong Il is now engaged in a nuclear brinkmanship with the U.S. Kim Jong Il is often characterized as paranoid and crazy. Is he really a crazy and irrational leader? Kim Jong Il remains an enigma to the outsiders. How can we then explain his regime’s survival and resilience? Kim Jong Il has proved to the world that he is a very shrewd dictator.
