To most Americans, Kim Jong Il is a clown: his suits, that haircut, his boasting and petty games all make him an object of ridicule and laughter. The people he surrounds himself with are another reason, as seen in the picture below. The elderly senior military leaders, always shown as subservient to him, in their oversized saucer caps, chests full of ribbons, and obvious shows of puffed-up confidence come across as a satirical parody of a real military. You understand, like the US or UK, Iran, or China. A modern version of Gilbert & Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance.

At the same time, we recognize that the people of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) all but worship him and his family as gods. And are under virtually total control of him and his apparat. Indeed, the younger soldiers do, in the sense of the Greek words translated “worship” (to pay homage and to serve). Whether they are the athletic female troops marching in their swirling micro-skirts or the short, skinny grunts in utilities uniforms that seem to date from the 1950s, they are clearly devoted and willing to kill and die for “Communism” and Kim.

At the same time, North Korea does seem to be a threat. At least to their estranged family in the South, in the Republic of Korea. Just as much or more to the Empire of Japan. And possibly to other nations. He does have nuclear weapons. Certainly not on the scale or with the quality of the world’s nuclear powers: the US, Russia, UK, or even France, India or Pakistan. Possibly still almost as “primitive” as the US of 1945.

The Korea Times reports that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un told a conference of company commanders in Pyongyang that building the “world’s strongest armed forces” is a top national priority, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). This was well publicized, in part because of rumors that Kim had croaked.

Readers may recall that NKPA “volunteers” were sent to join Russian forces fighting in the Ukraine, and seemingly vanished away. There has been much speculation: were they all “spent” (wiped out)? Just cannon fodder? Or did they gain the real combat experience which an army that has not fought a major battle, let alone a major campaign needs? Despite their age and the glittering ribbons on the chests of those generals and marshals, you can be reasonably sure that none of them has seen real combat. So now are their combat veterans back home teaching the rest of the army the painful lessons learned in the WW`-like conditions to the West?

So what would the “World’s Strongest Army” be used for by Kim, his sister, or some other heir to the divine position of leadership of the elite of the proletariat?

To us, we are reminded of two classic stories. One is the delightfully zany micro-nation of Leonard Wibberley’s 1955 novel The Mouse That Roared, later a movie with Peter Sellers. It too was reputed to have a nuclear bomb and drove the American FedGov to its knees.

The other classic story is part of Gordon Dickson’s multi-novel series The Dorsai Cycle. That splintered galactic Terran-based setting included the Friendlies, a fanatical religious culture that produced mass armies of what were cannon fodder: their planets were poverty-stricken by the demands of raising and training armies which were shipped to wartorn planets and sent glorious mementos of their glorious dead and lots of cash back to their home planets.

Dickson even wrote their battle hymn: Soldiers, ask not, now or ever, where to war your banner’s go. Anarch’s legions all surround us, strike and do not count the blow.

It would seem fitting to be sung by those delightful beauties marching past Kim high on the reviewing stand, and by the “elite” soldiers conducting mass and mostly suicide charges against Japanese or Ukrainian defenders into the radioactive chaos of a People’s Army nuclear strike. In their case, of course, the religion is the worship of the Kim family and the ideals of a form of Leninism-Marxism that makes Stalinism look refreshing.

And is ignored by the Woke of the West. Including the DSA in the States, Labour in the UK, and many others.

Perhaps, when we get right down to it, the threat that Pyongyang and Kim pose to the West is not provided by his dream of the world’s strongest army. Rather, it is one of the strongest arguments still in the world today of what the true fruits of socialism are. We do not lack for examples, for arguments: we can look at Cuba, Venezuela, a handful of African nations, Chicago, Seattle, and Los Angeles. But the sheer magnitude of North Korean society’s nature staggers the mind.

For those readers interested, Gordon Dickson’s lyrics:

Soldier, ask not – now, or ever,
Where to war your banners go.
Anarch’s legions all surround us.
Strike – and do not count the blow!

Glory, honor, praise and profit,
Are but toys of tinsel worth.
Render up your work, unasking,
Leave the human clay to earth.

Blood and sorrow, pain unending,
Are the portion of us all.
Grasp the naked sword, opposing,
Gladly in the battle fall.

So shall we, anointed soldiers,
Stand at last before the Throne,
Baptized in our wounds, red-flowing,
Sealed unto our Lord – alone!

There are several suitable and common tunes to which it can be sung, including the original by Josef Haydn, the “Kaiserhymne.”