Rarely in the field of human endeavour has so little been known by so few about something so important. If Kim Jong-woon, third son of Kim Jong-il, really has been selected to succeed his father as North Korea's leader, then the man who will have his finger on Pyongyang's atomic device is almost a complete unknown. Until the publication of memoirs in 2003 by a sushi chef working for Kim-the-elder, no one even knew of Kim Jong-woon's existence.
Son of North Korea's leader and a Japanese-born dancer, Kim-the-younger was born in 1983. Or was it 1984? Educated in Switzerland, he likes basketball. Unless western intelligence agencies have entirely failed to do their job, presumably there is more on file. But in terms of public information, that is about all that is known of the man likely to become the third Kim to rule the Stalinist state.
That does not give the international community much to go on in terms of formulating a long-range policy. It would certainly be foolish to count on Mr Kim's western education as any guarantee that he will be more reasonable. Remember, some entertained hopes that Bashar al-Assad, a UK-trained ophthalmologist, would transform Syria when he became president. Such hopes set too much store by individual leaders and not enough in the political structures that give them life.