North Korea is a peculiar place but it should not be considered in isolation. Although a small state, it takes part in regional relationships that go far back in history and in global networks of more recent vintage but great consequence. But what precisely is North Korea?
At first blush, North Korea looks like Sparta with nuclear weapons. Like Sparta it is a garrison state–communistic, militaristic, austere, isolated, secretive, totalitarian (much more efficiently so than its ancient counterpart), and often brutal to its own inhabitants. True, North Korea does not have helots, as Sparta’s large population of serfs was called, but it does have prison camps and national priorities that put guns very far ahead of butter. Famine devastated North Korea in the 1990s, killing perhaps two million people or ten per cent of the population. Although the worst is over, reports of micro-famine and even cannibalism persist.
On second thought, the analogy is imperfect because Sparta was a constitutional monarchy offering a degree of political freedom to its citizen elite. Observers disagree as to whether North Korea is best characterized as communist, fascist or nationalist, but one thing is clear: since its founding in 1948, North Korea has been a hereditary dictatorship run by one family. Kim Il-sung (r. 1948-1994), known as the “Great Leader” and “Eternal President,” his son Kim Jong-il (r. 1994-2011), known as the “Dear Leader” and “Supreme Leader,” and his grandson Kim Jong-un (r. 2011-present), another “Supreme Leader,” have been the sole rulers as well as the objects of a massive cult of personality. Sparta preferred gray, company men.
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