Kim Jong Un is the the 29-year-old ruler of North Korea, one of the most distinctive and unpredictable countries in the world. It is a cocktail of poisonous elements: autocratic, repressive, isolated and poor (Powell).Its regime is dangerous not only to its people but also to the rest of the world. Its actions have had an unsettling impact on international relations in northeast Asia, particularly its nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009 and its shelling of Yeonpyeong Island in 2010, all of which led to tensions between China and the united States (Ahn). North Korea’s present and future, therefore, are of global concern (Powell). North Korea is "a Stalinist monarchy" where bloodlines, and only bloodlines, determine who the next dictator will be--no matter how young or inexperienced that person may be, notes South Korean scholar Cheong Seong-chang (Ahn). Nearly 30,000 U.S. troops sit across the border, helping defend South Korea against the 1.2 million-member army, most of it which exists within 30 miles of the demilitarized zone. Over the past decade, despite crippling economic sanctions imposed by most of the outside world, North Korea has defiantly developed and tested nuclear weapons and the long-range missiles needed to deliver them (Ahn). Western intelligence agencies make an educated guess that Pyongyang is holding 8 to 12 nuclear weapons. The hard truth is that North Korea is Asia's last remaining Cold War trip wire (Ahn). This is the country now ostensibly helmed by young Kim Jong Un, just 29 by most accounts, the grandson of Kim Il Sung, the founder of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the creator of its core ideology: juche, or self-reliance (Powell). In Korean, Kim Il Sung was called Suryong (Great Leader), an almost godlike form. When he died in 1994, his eldest son, Kim Jong Il, then 52, continued the empire. With Kim Jong Il's