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Kim's Death Unlikely to Breed Chaos

Doomsday scenarios for North Korean succession farfetched

By Nick McMaster, Newser Staff

Posted Sep 22, 2008 12:49 PM CDT

(Newser) – With Kim Jong Il conspicuously out of the public eye in recent months, some speculate that his death could shatter the North Korean government and precipitate humanitarian and possibly military crises. But the reality of succession, Philip Bowring writes in the International Herald Tribune, is likely to be far more orderly, and to unfold much more slowly.

Both the Communist Party and the army are disciplined organizations, and power struggles are likely to occur behind closed doors, not in open warfare. “Events are unpredictable,” he writes, “yet it is a reasonable assumption that a post-Kim North Korea is unlikely to move fast on economic or political reform, let alone reunification. But it also unlikely to be any worse than it is now.”

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A South Korean woman reads newspaper reporting on the status of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, Sept. 10, 2008. (AP Photo)

"Change in the post-Kim era, at least in the initial phase, is likely to be gradual," Philip Bowring writes of North Korea after the death of leader Kim Jong Il. (AP Photo)

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Their senior ranks are primarily interested in their own survival and in guarding their privileges. North Korea's leaders have shown for years that they are cruel and calculating, but not messianic or self-destructive. - Philip Bowring

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Kim's Death Unlikely to Breed Chaos