On an icy December day in 2011, North Korea's new leader Kim Jong Un was accompanied by seven advisers as they escorted the hearse that carried his father, Kim Jong Il, through the streets of Pyongyang.
None of the men remain with the young Kim. This October, he demoted the last of his father's aides, both men in their 90s. They were among around 340 people he has purged or executed, according to the Institute for National Security Strategy, a think tank of South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS).
Kim, "obviously a madman" in the eyes of U.S. President Donald Trump, has completed a six-year transition to what the South calls a reign of terror. His unpredictability and belligerence have instilled fear worldwide: After he tested a "breakthrough" missile earlier this week, he pronounced North Korea a nuclear power capable of striking the United States. But a closer look at his leadership reveals a method behind the "madness."
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