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Has Kim Jong Un died? https://nypost.com/2020/04/25/north-kor ... o-be-dead/

Or is he just hanging out in a resort town?
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/ ... 57688.html

No idea if he's in good health, ill, or dead. No idea if he was a figurehead or a genuine dictator. Don't really care either, truth be told. North Korea may start acting differently, or it may not, which is pretty much par for the course.

What about a civil war between various military factions? With the possibility that nuclear weapons get used...

Because as fucking terrible as that would be for the NK population, the status quo in NK remains less than attractive. Not that I can suggest any great routes towards improving them.

Nuclear weapons aren't particularly useful in a civil war, unless a powerful faction without any foolishly parks most of its leaders in some remote location, which ain't gonna happen. The biggest danger from the nukes is a faction that finds itself owning a load deciding it could fund its efforts by selling them, although you'd expect various spy agencies to be very much focused on making that as hard as possible.

But, as I say, who knows whether there's a power change at all. It could just be a case of the real leaders swapping figureheads. Or it could be a well rehearsed coronation of whomever has been groomed as the leader in waiting. Or he's just on holiday or having a midlife crisis Lion King style. It's a long time since his father took him to the roof of the Presidential Palace and said everything the darkness touches was theirs, and now he's off singing hakuna matata in some luxury resort.

If on faction has or gains control of nuclear weapons, but then has their back against the wall and it is their last chance to turn things around, is usually the kind of scenario people fear.

Threatening to use them would be the play to gain influence.

A faction in charge of NK's most prized military assets, and with the ability to deploy them, and powerful enough to think they can rule NK for some time should they manage to take it... and all this with their backs against the wall in last chance saloon?

No, I don't fear this scenario at all. It seems incredibly unlikely. Far less likely than the existing / previous (depending on his health) regime deciding to make a few quid by selling nukes to foreign actors. So in terms of nuclear risk I don't think there's been much change.