Meet Kim Jong Un

He's the 29-year-old ruler of North Korea, the world's least known, most dangerous country.

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KCNA / AFP / Getty Images

This picture taken by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on January 1, 2012 shows new North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un (front row-C) posing for photos with soldiers of the Seoul Ryu Kyong Su 105 Guards Tank Division of the Korean People's Army honored with the title of the O Jung Hup-led Seventh Regiment at an undisclosed place in North Korea.

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If only it were that simple. The Kim dynasty and its personality cult obscure a grim, overarching reality: the smothering, vicious police state whose internal security apparatus employs no fewer than 300,000 people and exists only to maintain control over the population, no matter how destitute or restive. Kim Jong Il, it's true, allowed small private markets to grow, but only because after the period of starvation in the 1990s, there was nowhere else to go. Bolder steps require less state control, and there is little evidence that the ruling Korean Workers' Party and the State Security Ministry are willing to loosen the reins. North Korea is also a kleptocracy, with senior officials raking off millions from state-owned enterprises as well as from illicit trade in everything from weapons to pirated pharmaceuticals. Upsetting the economic status quo means very big toes get stepped on. Is 29-year-old Kim Jong Un going to go there? Does he have the smarts? Says chef Fujimoto: "I don't want to use the word intelligent. He's not [that] type."

The other center of power is the military, in charge of the nuclear weapons that the leadership believes are the ultimate guarantor of its security. Perhaps that's why Kim Jong Un has already been shown on local TV visiting troops around the country, displaying a populist touch--joking amiably with soldiers just a few years younger than he is. Kim Jong Il practiced what came to be called "military first" politics, putting its interests ahead of even the party's. The son is doing the same.

Could Kim Jong Un cajole or even threaten the old guard into going along with policies that might benefit the benighted citizens of North Korea? A man who knew his father and who has dealt with the leadership in Pyongyang--and who shook Kim Jong Un's hand at Kim Jong Il's funeral--waves the question away. To ask it, he suggests, is to misunderstand the regime. The system needs the dynasty to persist because without it, the entire edifice of power in North Korea could collapse. In that sense, Kim Jong Un is a necessary front man. But the notion that he will pull all the policy strings, stay abreast of palace intrigues and tell senior cadres and military officers what to do is "a fantasy," says the insider. "He's just a boy. He is soft."

NBA fan Kim Jong Un probably knows that in pro basketball, soft is the one thing you do not want to be. And his life now is no game.

TO SEE THE ICONOGRAPHY OF THE KIM DYNASTY, GO TO time.com/kimicons

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