Kim Jong Il is bound to fall. The reclusive son of Kim Il Sung, North Korea's late "Great Leader," is doomed to carry on the failed policies that form his meager inheritance. Without reform, however, his rickety Stalinist regime will likely succumb to either a military putsch or a violent collapse. Kim may still be tempted to use the North's nuclear program to extort concessions from the West. Washington and its East Asian allies must remain steadfast. A nuclear-armed Kim is a strategic nightmare.
