It was a mild autumn evening in Pyongyang. The sun was gradually setting over the Taedong River casting a spectacular shadow over the capital’s cityscape. Dusk was creeping in and the multitude of street lights were strenuously bidding to thwart its rapid advance.
The citizenry of this great nation were trundling back to their homes having spent yet another day furthering the cause of the Juche revolution.
A few miles north of the central Kim Il-sung Square, named after the founder and “eternal president” of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), a car was seen pulling into the presidential compound at Ryongsong residence of Kim Jong-un, the Supreme Leader of North Korea.
The car drove through the thickly forested compound and pulled into a driveway towards the center of the property. Three uniformed generals alighted from the car and were greeted by an orderly who ushered them through the entrance.
The residence was ostentatiously decorated – the walls were adorned with rare pieces of art not seen in the western world since the end of the Great War and Persian and Central Asian carpets lined the Italian marble floors.
Priceless artefacts from ancient Greece, Babylonia and Egypt competed for display with historical treasures from the Korean peninsula.
The generals followed the orderly up a spiraled staircase onto the first floor and through a long passage adorned with Michael Jordan memorabilia.
The people of North Korea may worship Kim Il-sung as the messianic reincarnation of the “almighty god” who “created the world” millions of years ago but there was only one god that the current Supreme Leader worshipped – Michael Jordan, the god of basketball.
Kim Jong-un’s Hobbies? Basketball & Hollywood Films
The Supreme Leader’s much vaunted love for basketball is well-documented and while his efforts at befriending Michael Jordan may have come to naught, he did find a fan in his Chicago Bulls team mate Dennis Rodman who was always effusive in his praise of Kim Jong-un.
The generals continued their march down the long passage, past a framed University of North Carolina Jordan jersey and stood outside a large brown door. The orderly knocked thrice, carefully opened the door and announced the arrival of the generals.
However, his voice was drowned out by the loud sounds emanating from the room. The trio walked in to find the rather healthy frame of their Supreme Commander lying lazily on a reclining chair, sporting his unique hairdo, wearing a Chicago Bulls hoodie and Nike Air trainers, clutching a box of popcorn and watching a movie on the large screen in front of him.
The cinema was Kim Jong-un’s favourite part of the residence. Originally built as an audiovisual room for the screening of revolutionary films for the approval of the leadership, it was now used solely for the Supreme Leader’s personal entertainment.
Post the imposition of strict UN sanctions and subsequent economic isolation of the hermit kingdom, Hollywood and global content had been hard to come by.
Kim Jong-un Likes to Keep His Enemies Closer
However, recently a team of revolutionary hackers at the cyber warfare division of the North Korean army had successfully undermined American counter revolutionary designs and managed to hack into the servers of HBO and Netflix and neutralised their imperialist propaganda.
The Supreme Leader had spent the vast majority of the past week thoroughly examining the contents of the extensive propaganda stash. The key to victory over one’s enemy was to understand the way the enemy thinks and to go deep within the mind of one’s enemy.
As a quote in a cold war era imperialist American movie said, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”
The generals stood in attention, their bodies stiff and erect and saluted their Supreme Commander who kept chomping on his popcorn. The lackadaisical air belied an undercurrent of nervousness that was brewing within. Kim Jong-un was a worried man.
While binge-watching Netflix he had chanced upon the show ‘Narcos’ on the history of the drug cartels in Colombia and grew edgy as he watched the United States government ruthlessly hunt down another foreign revolutionary and the leader of the Medellin cartel, Pablo Escobar.
As Escobar’s story unfolded and as he watched his empire crumble under mounting American pressure to a final grim and grisly end on a Medellin rooftop, thoughts of the fates of similar leaders echoed in his mind. Images of the brutal mob killing of Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi and ignominious hanging of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein flashed in front of his eyes.
His was one of the three regimes that were a part of George W Bush’s infamous Axis of Evil. While the Americans had ensured regime change in Iraq and had struck a nuclear deal with Iran, his regime was the last hold out.
How much longer before the Americans came for him too?
Dare Kim Jong-un Defy America?
The North Korean nation was buttressed by the twin ideological pillars of Juche or “self-reliance” and “Songun” or a “military first” policy.
The Juche ideology called for self-reliance in economic, military and political matters to ensure the autonomy and independence of the North Korean State. An important subset of the Juche policy was the achievement of Jawi or self-reliance in defence.
Hence, to ensure the preservation and sustenance of the regime the North Koreans embraced Songun or a military first policy. Whenever they felt cornered or threatened, it was this approach that they always adopted.
Kim Jong-un knew that his nation had survived thus far due to its single-minded pursuit of self-preservation.
The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 was thought to have been a mortal blow for the Juche republic but his father Kim Jong-il had ensured the regime survived through Chinese support. However, post the election of that bombastic war-mongering, anti-globalisation Donald Trump in the United States, the Chinese increasingly saw themselves as the leader of the world order and had distanced themselves from North Korea.
Kim Jong-un found himself completely alone. He was isolated, without a friend in the world and feared a fate similar to that of others who had dared defy America.
The Supreme Leader used his iPad to pause the show and switched on the lights. The generals stood in rapt attention and saluted him as he slowly lifted himself from the recliner and returned their salute. He adjusted his hair and dusted off the residual popcorn from his hoodie and looked his generals in the eye and said:
I believe our regime faces the gravest existential threat since the founding of the revolutionary republic. The Americans have always tried to undermine our Juche ideology and make us a vassal like their puppet to our south. However, they now seem intent on regime change. We must escalate and showcase to them that if we do go down, we will not go down alone.
The generals stood shell-shocked. Was their rather rotund Supreme Commander, over two decades younger than them, with no formal military training, a failing student at his Swiss boarding school and whose only qualification for his job was the lottery of his birth, asking them to take on the greatest military power on earth?
‘Let’s Threaten to Bomb the US and Fire Our Missiles Over Japan!’
Surely, even he can’t be that stupid? Finally, one of the generals mustered up the courage to pose the question festering in all their minds, “Your Excellency, what is it that you propose to do?”
The Supreme Commander gave a naughty smile and said:
We shall threaten to bomb the United States and fire our missiles over the heathen Japanese invaders as a warning shot. That loud mouth capitalist Trump will know that if he chooses to mess with me, he messes with the best.
The generals stared at each other incredulously. Again, the brave general said, “That is truly an excellent idea Your Excellency but for a minor predicament. We currently do not have any missiles that can actually reach the United States. Our longest-range missile is the Hwasong-12 and that can at best reach the island of Guam and the sparsely populated Aleutian Islands off the coast of Alaska. Our threats would have no substance.”
The Supreme Leader looked rather confused with this response:
Huh? What do you mean? Didn’t we just test the Intercontinental missile Hwasong-14 that you said would have the range to hit the continental United States including the great cities of New York, Los Angeles and Washington? It’s on that basis I have been engaging in a virtual verbal sabre-rattling with Trump. Whatever happened to that?
The End of the World Is Near
The good general once again dipped into the cavernous depths of his courage and said:
Your Excellency, we refer to them as missile tests for a reason because that’s exactly what they are. It would take years of testing before we can successfully mount a conventional let alone a nuclear warhead on these missiles.
Kim Jong-un stood speechless. He had only just realised that he was inadvertently caught bluffing in a high stakes poker game. He was holding a weak hand and had the smallest stack against an opponent with the strongest hand on the table.
Further, he was up against an opponent who was a compulsive high stakes gambler himself and was a long-term casino owner. The old adage finally dawned on him that the house always wins.
However, like any gambler who had committed too deep into a hand and was stretched far beyond his means or the strength of his cards but was unwilling to back down and show weakness, Kim Jong-un prepared to raise the stakes. “General, carry out a thermonuclear test within the week. It is time the world knows that Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea means business and we will not back down.”
In unison the three generals replied, “As you order Supreme Commander.” The generals stood in rapt attention, saluted their Commander-in-Chief, sought his permission to be dismissed, strode out of the cinema, through the passage lined with Michael Jordan memorabilia, down the spiraled staircase and past the rare art and the ancient artifacts and into the waiting car on the driveway and all thought to themselves, “Truly, the end of the world was nigh.”
(Ameya Prabhu is a private equity entrepreneur and writer based out of Mumbai, India. He can be reached @ameyaprabhu. This is a personal blog and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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