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Well, you’ve no doubt heard by now that the world’s most tyrannical, diminutive bastard, Kim Jong-il, has pancreatic cancer. With around only 10% of sufferers of pancreatic cancer actually managing to survive, you’d say Kim Jong-il’s chances are – well, pretty much fucked really.

So, this means sometime before Christmas is around chances are North Korea will be without its leader. Kim Jong-il, knowing his fate, assigned his youngest son, Jong-un, to take over and has since gone out of his way to display his still-intact strength by firing off plenty of missiles and verbal fire to the outside world. However, these displays were primarily intended for local consumption – to keep the ordinary North Korean folk toey and in eternal readiness for a potential, but almost entirely unlikely, call-up against their perceived enemies – the US, Japan and South Korea; but mainly for show for the military and political elite to make sure they know just who’s in charge, who will be in charge next, and to diminish any ideas of funny business in the interim or after his death.

Make no mistake when Kim Jong-il dies, shit will hit the fan as I see it. The political and military elite will desperately try to gain as much power as possible and – if we’re lucky, only some people will die. I’m somewhat less optimistic and believe there’s a high chance of civil war on the event of Kim Jong-il’s death. And, it won’t be a clean, easily-identifable war, it will be a multi-pronged, complex war a la modern-day Iraq. You will have the military elite, the political elite, the soldiers and somewhere in the middle the masses of ordinary North Korean folk – who could well determine just who comes out on top as their numbers and support will be vital for the eventual winning faction. Ordinary North Koreans and indeed North Korean soldiers have slowly but surely gained an increased window into the outside world and its relative prosperity largely via Chinese-made South Korean dramas, comedies and TV show CDs bootlegged into the country via its often, somewhat porous – as long as you do the right thing and pay off the surrounding North Korean soldiers – northern border with China. Most people now know, or at least have an inkling, that the rest of the world is not starving and moneyless as they’ve been brainwashed to believe. Will this be enough ammunition for the people to rise up following Kim’s death and refuse anymore years under reign of a Kim or some other likeminded despot? Only time will tell.

My belief is that whilst the major players – the US, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia – are not too happy with a North Korea under Kim’s reign, they’re  positively anxious about the uncertainty of  a North Korea without him and the possibly violent, unpredictable vacuum it could create. Kim Jong-il’s a cant of the highest order but in the eyes of the major players he’s a predictable cant as he’s done the same thing under his entire reign – live like a king, reward his allies, crush his foes, suppress, abuse and kill his countrymen, lie and cheat, and cry and ask for more aid when stocks are getting low. No one, however, can say with absolute certainty what will happen once he’s gone. And that time is coming fast.

When Kim Jong-il dies we are going to see uncertainty, we’re going to see at some least retraction in the East Asian markets over the North Korean instability, we’re going to see anxiety on all sides. What we don’t know however, is just what else we might see and I’m sure that’s plenty of high-ups in Seoul, Washington, Tokyo and Beijing keenly assessing and  anxiously watching just what’s happening (or is going to happen) in the Hermit Kingdom of North Korea.