The year 2012 was always going to be a momentous, tinged with fear, for the Korean peninsula with changes of authoritarian leadership in train in North Korea and China and presidential elections in South Korea and the United States. The sudden death of Kim Jong-il and his replacement by his chosen son, the relatively unknown twenty-something Kim Jong-un, at the end of 2011 has simply added to the importance of 2012 and the associated fears.