Unlike his cousin Choi Ji-hoon, Choi Ha-guk was a seasoned military officer, leading the elite Army unit that had killed Ji-hoon’s bodyguard two years earlier in a violent coup and overthrown the young, spoiled fool. Choi Ha-guk’s father, Choi Sang-u, was freed from his labor camp and installed as the new supreme leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. But years of forced labor had destroyed his father’s health, and within weeks of leaving the camp, he died. With his father’s blessing and the Army behind him, Ha-guk’s unanimous election to the nation’s presidency, the chairmanship of the party, and promotion to the supreme marshal of the armed forces was assured.

The chairman’s first order of business was to repair his relationship with China, grossly undermined by his idiot cousin. Having trained with some of China’s top military units and fluent in Mandarin, the chairman had deep personal and political ties with key members of the Chinese Politburo and PLA staff officers.

Changing policy course was vital but difficult. Undermining his cousin’s failed initiative potentially delegitimized his own position. Choi Ha-guk was careful to preserve the hagiographies of his violent predecessors—a cousin, his father, his uncle, and his grandfather. North Korea was the inheritance of the Choi family, and he would do nothing to risk that inheritance for himself or his own children, who stood in the line of succession now that his uncle and cousin were dead.

But Choi Ha-guk also had a vision. He knew he was destined to play a decisive role on the world stage and finally elevate North Korea to its rightful place among the nations. Kant and Hegel were essentially right. All of History was marching toward an Idea. What neither philosopher realized was that he, Choi Ha-guk, was that Idea—at least in Asia.

But all of that was at risk now. His next decision would determine the fate of the country, he was certain.

Sitting at the head of the table, Chairman Choi Ha-guk surveyed the row of grim military officers on his left, each stern face directed toward him, their spines stiff, hands neatly folded in their laps. Their hair was cropped uniformly short in the regulation military style and their broad caps stood in a perfect row in front of them down the table—with the exception of the missing officer and his empty chair. A man who had recently disappointed the chairman.

Each military uniform was resplendent with hard-won badges, medals, and ribbons from the shoulder tabs to the hems of the coats—enough “fruit salad” for a dozen wars and a hundred battles. But not one of them had served in the great Fatherland Liberation War or in sustained combat of any kind.