Leaders | North Korea

How to deal with the world’s most dangerous regime

Donald Trump grapples with his trickiest task

NORTH KOREA can be as confusing as it is alarming. It is a hereditary Marxist monarchy. It has the world’s youngest supreme leader and also its oldest. The reigning tyrant, Kim Jong Un, is in his 30s; and his grandfather, Kim Il Sung, is the “eternal president” despite having died in 1994. To celebrate grandpa Kim’s birthday on April 15th, his grandson ordered warplanes to fly past in a formation spelling out his age: 105. He also ordered a gigantic parade, with goose-stepping soldiers and missiles on trucks. A male-voice choir belted out “Peace is guaranteed by our arms”, even as the regime threatens to rain nuclear destruction on its enemies and is building a missile designed to reach the continental United States.

This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “Handle with extreme care”

Handle with extreme care

From the April 22nd 2017 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition
El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele

First he busted gangs. Now Nayib Bukele busts critics

El Salvador’s president has all the tools of repression he needs to stay in power indefinitely

The illustration is showing a feeding clear feeding bag with a rose inside

How Labour should save the NHS

Among all its ideas, the most important is to go all-in for digital transformation


American finance, always unique, is now uniquely dangerous

Donald Trump is putting an untested system under almighty strain


India needs to turn the air-con on

If its awful air pollution is ever solved the country will get even hotter

Pausing foreign applications to American universities is a terrible idea

The Trump administration hobbles a great American export