Domestic Implications of North Korea's Nuclear Test

North Korea's current domestic predicament is comparable to the worst periods of Chinese Communism. The excesses of China's Great Leap Forward famine of the early 1960s and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution campaign that followed are little appreciated by young people in China today. But they do know who Chairman Mao Zedong was. But what these young people mostly talk about is the national pride Mao engendered in China by being the national leader when the Chinese Government exploded China's first atomic bomb in 1964. Kim Jong-Il is seen by many in North Korea as much less of a leader than his father was. But undoubtedly Kim Jong-Ils's prestige among people in the DPRK has soared after the announcement of a nuclear test by his Government. The measures taken by the international community to sanction the DPRK for exploding a nuclear device will likely only strengthen the nationalistic resolve of Koreans in the DPRK to support the Kim Jong-Il régime. In the meantime the people in North Korea suffer from hunger and social injustice and DPRK remains the most dangerous threat to global security today. It is the major political conundrum of our times.