Dressed in a dark Mao suit and standing on a podium high above Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang yesterday, the new leader said, “the days of enemies threatening and blackmailing us with nuclear weapons are forever over.” Goose-stepping soldiers, mobile rocket launchers and tanks rumbled through the streets below in a celebration broadcast on state television.

North Korea’s humiliation from a long-range rocket that disintegrated within minutes of liftoff two days earlier increases the chance of Kim ordering an atomic test to regain face, South Korean Deputy Defense Minister Lim Kwan Bin said on April 13. The launch also ended a U.S. food-aid deal.

“Kim is very aware of how powerful the military is and knows his only strategy is to keep selling the ‘military-first’policy,” said Koh Yu Hwan, a professor of North Korean studies at Seoul’s Dongguk University. “Stability is what the young Kim needs most and he needs the full support of the military.”