From the American Prospect:
While anticipated, Kim, Jong-il's death could turn out to be quite problematic.  Efforts at contingency planning have been underway in various places for some time because numerous actors have a strong interest in what happens.  But those actors disagree sharply on what they want to happen, and have therefore done much of their planning without closely consulting each other and in some secrecy.  The ones in North Korea have been particularly restricted in this regard, but those in Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo, Washington, and even Moscow are certainly not ready to say what is to come next and not ready to say for certain how they will react to whatever comes. [About the author: Patrick M. Morgan is the Tierney chair in global peace and conflict studies at the University of California, Irvine.  Among others, he is a specialist on deterrence and a founding member of the Council on U.S. Korean Security studies.]

For the full story, please visit http://prospect.org/article/death-kim-jong-il-grounds-apprehension.