It's hard to manuafacture a god

From the looks of things, the attempt to consolidate Kim Jong-un's godhead are not going well with all sectors.  Some of them are downright laughable.  The ever-fascinating Nightwatch describes what's going on:

North Korea: Sunday, 8 January, was the birthday of Kim Jong-un, but it passed without fanfare. Instead, millions of North Koreans viewed a 50-minute television program showing Kim Jong-un greeting enthusiastic soldiers, driving a military tank, handling weapons, sitting in the cockpit of a military aircraft and riding a horse. 

Comment: North Korean propagandists have indulged in the theater of the absurd with the 50 minute documentary on the military genius of a young man raised in a Swiss boarding school who has never worn a uniform, never trained with a weapon and never done a pushup as an adult. In North Korean tanks and personnel carriers and in all North Korean combat aircraft, Kim Jong-un probably would be disqualified as a crew member or pilot because his girth would not allow him to fit, except for a photo op. Armor and flight officers have strict height, weight and girth requirements. 

In their zeal to manufacture a leader, the propagandists risk blow back from real soldiers. There were numerous assassination attempts against Kim Chong-il by soldiers because he had no military background, never wore a uniform or submitted to military training. He had a half-brother who did, however, and rose to the rank of colonel, but was exiled to Poland as an ambassador. 

Only Kim Il-sung was a genuine, Soviet-trained and advised military leader. Kim Jong-un resembles his grandfather in appearance, but that is where the likeness ends. This leadership transition is not being well-handled, from outside appearances, and cannot be considered stable based on the need to manufacture military credentials for Kim Jong-un. 

The need to manufacture military credentials for the successor is the best evidence yet that the military are in control and must be placated. The family leadership group around Kim Jong-un appears to want to restore the party's authority, which Kim Chong-il eviscerated and reviled for most of his tenure. However, in the short term, they cannot. Thus they apparently must pander first to the Korean People's Army. The Army, for now, is dominant in this power struggle, but the tension offers opportunities for South Korea and the US to nurture greater Party control.

Kim Jong-un.  Born last Friday in 1984 (photos from a birthday in 2009).

see Nightwatch

Constructing a God

How does one turn a nobody into a God?

It is a telling sign of who is the rising star in North Korea: state-run television showing octogenarian party secretaries bowing to a man their grandchildren’s age before accepting the smiling young man’s handshake or kowtowing to his instructions.

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When Kim Jong-un, thought to be in his late 20s, emerged from obscurity a year ago this past week as a four-star general and vice chairman of the Workers’ Party’s Central Military Commission, the first thing the outside world noticed was the obesity he appeared to have inherited from his father and his grandfather, the late North Korean founder Kim Il-sung. (Some South Korean news media outlets speculate that he may have undergone plastic surgery to more closely resemble his grandfather, a godlike figure among North Koreans.)

A year on, it appears increasingly clear that the regime is helping Kim Jong-un inherit a personality cult of his own. On state TV, he is packaged to look like his grandfather: Mao suit, swept-back hair and the gravitas North Koreans associate with the “Great Leader,” who died in 1994. Less clear is whether the ruthless cunning that has intimidated generals and party elders is his or his father’s. Key to the political dynamics surrounding the succession in Pyongyang, analysts say, is whether Kim Jong-il can live long enough to provide his son with whatever assistance he may need to settle into power.

I suppose it's a little easier when you are taking over the family business.

A Year On, North Korea’s ‘Dear Young General’ Has Made His Mark - NYTimes.com:

You don't need communism to have a cult of personality

Vladamir Putin's party will probably get most of what it wants in the next elections, but he's leaving little to chance.  In a country where almost nobody trusts the government or expects it to make things better, the only alternative is to trust in a man.  No--a superman:

Vladimir Putin is an amazing man. You may have seen him co-piloting an
aircraft recently and dumping 12 tons of water to extinguish two of the many wildfires raging across Western Russia. But did you know that in 2008 he used a tranquilizer gun to save a group of scientists and a television camera crew from a charging tiger?  In 2009, he saved
Russian shoppers from high prices by ordering a grocery store executive to put sausages on sale, forced one of the world's richest men to restore laid off workers to their jobs by reopening a cement plant, taught judo to the Russian national judo team, and went to the bottom of the world's deepest lake in a submarine. In April, he hugged a polar bear. He swims Siberian rivers for exercise and enjoys bare-chested summer horseback rides. Without question, women
love him. It's said that he will never have a heart attack, because his heart isn't foolish enough to attack him. Or maybe that's somebody else.   

What a guy.  Of course it's not a problem unique to Russia.  In North Korea, the "Dear Leader" is credited with the ability to control the weather.  On his first trip to a golf course. he shot 38 under par, including five holes-in-one.  And don't even get me started on his prowess at bowling.

It seems the less a government is able to deliver, the more it requires a superman at the top.  And in a totally unrelated story,

The Korean War is underway

But don't panic about it. An op-ed in the WSJ points out that since the North Koreans announced in 2003, 2006, and as late as May 26th this year that the Armistice is no longer binding on them, it means it is no longer binding for the UN (US) forces, either.

I doubt we'll see American ships fire on North Korean any time soon, but legally the US is within its rights to do so.

Perhaps North Korea should reconsider its position on the Armistice?

How to Stop North Korea's Weapons Proliferation - WSJ.com