North Korea Unlikely to revise Approach toward world

North Korea's ailing leader Kim Jong Il has laid the groundwork for a transition of power to his youngest son but it remains to be seen if the reclusive nuclear-armed regime will soften its combative stance toward the international community.

The impoverished nation has long used both carrots and sticks to get what it wants: offering dialogue and promises to dismantle its nuclear program to get aid, and when it runs into resistance, conducting missile and atomic tests and threatening to destroy rival South Korea. Analysts see little prospect of that strategy changing, although some speculate that Pyongyang could seek a period of calm - after a turbulent past two years - to minimise confrontation with the outside world as it enters a time of transition in its top ranks.

This week's elevation of Kim Jong Il's youngest son, Kim Jong Un, as a four-star general and to a key position in the ruling communist party at a political convention signaled that the little-known 20-something is on track to eventually succeed his 68-year old father, believed to have suffered a stroke in 2008. Underscoring Kim Jong Il's intent to consecrate his family's dominance and usher the dynasty into a third generation was the promotion of his 64-year-old sister, Kim Kyong Hui, to the same military rank and into the party's political bureau. She is married to another key member of the North's ruling elite, Jang Song Thaek, who holds the No. 2 position on the powerful National Defense Commission, led by Kim Jong Il.