Battleland

NoKo’s L’il Kim Outmaneuvers His Military

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Time’s ace Asia hand Bill Powell dissects this week’s surprising uncoup by Kim Jong Un in North Korea:

Far from being deposed or assassinated, Kim Jong Un had been promoted by the Korean Workers’ Party (KWP) from the rank of general to marshal in the North Korean military. Prior to this announcement, there had been six vice marshals in the North Korean military. Now, the 29-year-old Kim Jong Un outranks all of them. (His father, by contrast, had been promoted to marshal, the most senior position in the military two years before his own father Kim Il Sung died.) Anticlimactic, perhaps, but not insignificant.

Full dispatch here.