Kim Jong-un’s Resolute New Year’s Declamation

Sung-Yoon Lee

Security, Asia

What will North Korea do next? 

Were North Korean leader Kim Jong-un a complex fictional character, say, like Shakespeare’s Hamlet, he may brood with guilt over having had his uncle killed in 2013 (since Donald Trump was still talking about it in 2019) or having called a woman who has never married or had children a prostitute.

He may even spend his days pondering whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the proud man’s contumely or whether he should deliver on previous generations’ declarations of denuclearization and relinquish the “supreme national task” of Korean consummation—and thus cut off two score and ten years of fearing death. Almost certainly, Kim’s daily deliberations would be sicklied o’er with the pale cast of denuclearization.