North Korea: The cult that outlasted Stalin and Mao

North Korea has a flag, a military, nuclear weapons, and a UN seat. But Jonathan Cheng says we fundamentally misread it if we don't see it for what it is: a religious society. The Kim cult has outlasted Stalin's, outlasted Mao's, and is now in its third generation without any meaningful sign of fracture. The nukes protect against external threats. The cult handles everything else.

Now Kim Jong Un has done something his predecessors never dared: he's repudiated unification with South Korea as a state goal, essentially declaring heresy against the founding promise of his grandfather. The fact that he got away with it says everything about how completely he has consolidated power. In that sense, Kim Jung Un has already rewritten the doctrine, argues Cheng. That's not a stylistic shift. It's a theological one.