JUCHE LAST GASP

The death of the Great Leader, Kim Il Sung, in July 1994 marked the be ginning of the end of North Korea as the world has known it for the la st 40 years. The regime established by Kim is irrevocably identified w ith him personally. Louis XIV may have proclaimed: ''L'etat, c'est moi ,'' but Kim Il Sung made this a reality in North Korea. The myths crea ted to portray him as the liberator of Korea from the Japanese, the em phasis on the need for the people of North Korea to give their all for him (not for the country), and the insistence that Kim had created a paradise on earth epitomized in the omnipresent slogan ''We have nothi ng to envy in the world,'' have together created a system that is not Marxist-Leninist or communist (although it contains elements of both), but Kim Il Sungist. With Kim's demise, this system cannot survive. Th ings will change in North Korea. The country's economic decline and in ternational isolation are not sustainable and the current leadership i n Pyongyang offers no solutions to the country's mounting problems. Th e present regime in untenable and something will have to give, probabl y in the next twelve to eighteen months-perhaps sooner if this coming winter is particularly harsh. After a discussion of North Korea's curr ent dilemnas, three possible scenarios are outlined for the country's future: military coup, popular revolt, or regime collapse. The likely consequences of each for Northeast Asia are outlined, as well as possi ble internal developments inside North Korea. In the short term, South Korea can take heart from the fact that it enjoys the full support of the international community and from its security alliance with the U nited States. There is no question that the US would come to South Kor ea's defense if it were attacked; President Clinton made this crystal clear during his visit to Seoul in November 1993 when he said, ''An at tack on South Korea will be viewed as an attack on the United States.' ' Over the longer range South Korea knows that whatever occurs in Nort h Korea in the near future, Korea will be reunited on South Korea's te rms. At some point in the next century the world will be enriched by a democratic, prosperous, and united Korea.