However, it is also an error to attribute all this success (or later failure) to Il alone. Of course he legitimately caused some of it, but I’d bet he was more PR man than exec. His purpose was to have things attributed to him, regardless of whether they were caused by him, his shady group of supporters, by the institutions surrounding him, or by sheer public choice forces.

For example, without the tacit UN support you pointed out earlier, South Korea could have responded to Il’s threats by wiping the threat from the face of the Earth, just as any pre-industrial society is at the mercy of any post-industrial.