North Korea faces a number of threats to its security: natural disasters, a struggling economy, widespread malnutrition and ongoing tension with the United States. But the DPRK has proven itself to be remarkably stable so far, and that’s largely because of the unity of North Korea’s elite.

But because the country is centered around Kim Jong Un and his bloodline, many have speculated that a collapse of top-level North Korean leadership would spell disaster for today’s elite families in the DPRK, who are complacent with widespread poverty and human rights abuses in a society of severe social control.