Most Powerful

• #1 Kim Il-sung
  North Korea Party State ControlPolitical Cold War and Globalization State Power Power: 100
  Kim Il-sung (1912–1994) was the founder and first leader of North Korea, serving as the country’s dominant political figure from the establishment of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in 1948 until his death in 1994. Rising from anti-Japanese guerrilla activity and later benefiting from Soviet support after the Second World War, Kim built a one-party system under the Workers’ Party of Korea that combined ideological discipline, security control, and centralized economic planning. His rule shaped North Korea’s institutions for decades, including the creation of a pervasive personality cult and the emergence of dynastic succession in a formally socialist state.Kim’s leadership encompassed the Korean War (1950–1953), which devastated the peninsula and entrenched a militarized national posture. In the postwar period, the DPRK pursued rapid reconstruction and heavy industrial development while maintaining strict political control. Kim promoted the ideology commonly associated with Juche, framed as national self-reliance, and used it to justify both domestic discipline and independence within the communist bloc. By the late 20th century, the DPRK had developed into an intensely centralized state in which party hierarchy determined access to resources, mobility, and public life.
• #2 Kim Jong-il
  North Korea Party State ControlPolitical Cold War and Globalization State Power Power: 100
  Kim Jong-il (1941–2011) was the second supreme leader of North Korea, ruling from the death of his father Kim Il-sung in 1994 until his own death in 2011. He inherited a highly centralized one-party state and guided it through a period of severe economic crisis following the collapse of the Soviet Union, North Korea’s most important external patron. His tenure is closely associated with the country’s famine of the 1990s, the expansion of the security state, and the elevation of “Songun” or military-first politics, which made the armed forces a central pillar of governance.Kim Jong-il also presided over North Korea’s emergence as a nuclear-armed state. Under his leadership, the country withdrew from or challenged international frameworks intended to constrain weapons development and conducted its first nuclear test in October 2006. Diplomatic cycles, including summit diplomacy with South Korea and negotiations involving the United States and regional powers, alternated with periods of confrontation and sanctions. Supporters inside North Korea’s official narrative portray him as a defender of sovereignty against external hostility; outside observers generally describe his rule as repressive, economically destructive, and sustained through coercion and propaganda.
• #3 Kim Jong-un
  ChinaNorth KoreaRussiaSouth KoreaUnited States MilitaryParty State ControlPolitical 21st Century Military CommandState Power Power: 100
  Kim Jong-un (born about 1984) is the supreme leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. He succeeded his father, Kim Jong Il, in late 2011 and consolidated authority through control of the Workers’ Party of Korea, the Korean People’s Army, and the internal security apparatus. His tenure has been defined by the expansion of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, a sustained effort to prevent elite fragmentation, and alternating cycles of confrontation and diplomacy that tie the country’s external posture to regime security.