Jonathan Cheng

Well, I think he is a risk taker.

Kim Il-sung was very good at what he did.

North Korea was devastated during the Korean War.

It was surrounded on all sides by major world powers, including the USSR and the People's Republic of China.

He was very skillful in playing off Mao and Stalin.

And then you see his son, Kim Jong Il, also be very masterful about this as well.

And he really brought North Korea into the age of a nuclear program and a missile program.

But it's really Kim Jong Un, the current leader, who has really stepped on the accelerator.

And so we've seen him preside over a nuclear and missile program that is truly quite extraordinary.

I think North Korea is, like it or not,

an established nuclear state.

And so I think that that has effectively insulated North Korea from external threats.

I think that any leader that may ever set foot in the Oval Office would be very, very, very, very hesitant to consider any sort of military movement on North Korea.

Unfortunately,

I think that ship has sailed.

I don't know that that is a possibility anymore.

And I think this is where it fits together with the cult of personality that the Kim family has developed.

In the same way that you have nuclear weapons to forestall any sort of an external attack,

The internal threat is neutralized in large part by the fact that you have such loyalty to this family that has run North Korea without interruption and without any liberalization for now more than eight decades.

It's amazing.