Kim pursues his dream while North Koreans live a nightmare

Imagine a nation in which its new leader does not address his people for more than 100 days. No need to imagine. That nation is North Korea.

The North Korean people heard the first public words from their new leader, Kim Jong Un, on Sunday when he gave a 20-minute televised speech. The address preceded a military parade celebrating the 100th birthday of his grandfather Kim Il Sung.

The ability of a leader to isolate himself from the people is a prerogative of dictators and monarchs, and the Kim family has evolved into a combination that includes the worst of both.

Under different circumstances, Kim’s speech may have provided a sign of better things to come. He is already tied with his father, Kim Jong Il, who made only one public address in his lifetime.

But while Kim, who is believed to be in his late 20s and was groomed to succeed his father since his teens, may have demonstrated a greater propensity to reach out to the North Korean people than his father with so “early” an address, he showed no sign of veering from the disastrous course his family has set for the nation.

“Superiority in military technology is no longer monopolized by imperialists, and the era of enemies using atomic bombs to threaten and blackmail us is forever over,” Kim said.

Let them eat hubris

Such sabre rattling would seem to affirm a commitment to the “Military First” tradition of the Pyongyang regime. It might more accurately be called a military-at-all-cost strategy, because for decades North Korea has spent enormous amounts of capital on developing weaponry, while North Koreans starve. And even while the Kims — all three of them now — show that they’re more interested in puffing out their chests than filling their subjects’ stomachs.

Kim ignored the entreaties of Western leaders, including President Obama, and launched a rocket during the lead-up to Sunday’s centennial celebration. Kim and the generals who back him knew that the launch would jeopardize a deal to provide critically needed food for the nation, but they would not be deterred.

North Korea described the rocket as one designed to place a satellite in orbit. The U.S., South Korea, Japan and others saw it as a test of intercontinental ballistic missile technology.

That the rocket was an embarrassing dud — it broke up and fell into the sea before violating any other nation’s airspace — the fact remains that Kim put his need to try to demonstrate “superiority in military technology” above his people’s well-being.

He’s only in his 20s, which means that if he doesn’t begin finding the wisdom that comes with age, the North Korean people are in for decades more of every-day suffering while Kim and Company pursue their militaristic dreams.