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8 ways Kim Jong-Un has blindsided the US

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un guides a flight training of KPA Air and Anti-Air Force Unit 188, honored with the title of O Jung Hup-led Seventh Regiment on Monday, in this undated photo released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency, April 22, 2014.

When Kim Jong-un took power in December 2011, many experts saw his ascent as an opportunity for the West to transform the last bastion of hard-line communism, believing that the untested leader would shy away from confrontation with the U.S. and even South Korea.

Instead, North Korea’s leader — believed to be about 30 years old — has “proved to be more ruthless, aggressive and tactically skilled than anyone expected,” Peter Sanger of The New York Times reports.

Here are a few things North Korea’s supreme leader has done in the past 18 months to surprise and unnerve the U.S.:

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Is North Korea really forcing its young men to get Kim Jong-un’s haircut? Probably not…

When it comes to North Korea it is almost impossible to tell the difference between truth and rumor. And, you know, the reclusive country really has to shoulder some of the blame here–it’s hard to do fact checking when your subject responds to questions with poorly aimed missile launches!

However, when news broke last week that Pyongyang was now requiring all male university students to cut their hair like Kim Jong-un, we couldn’t stop an eyebrow from rising and thinking, “Wait, really?” As for whether or not it’s true, well, we think we have a solid answer…or as close to a solid answer as you can get when it comes to North Korea.

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South Koreans view arch-enemy Kim Jong-Un more favorably than Shinzo Abe

Here’s a striking example of how strained the relationship is between South Korea and Japan: The latest survey from Asian Institute for Policy found that among South Koreans, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un scored higher in favorability ratings than Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

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Close call – Passenger plane passed through North Korean missile trajectory just 6 minutes later

At approximately 4:17 p.m. on Tuesday this week, North Korea fired seven short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast into the Sea of Japan. While this in itself is not especially unusual for the world’s most secretive and hardline dictatorship, a genuinely unsettling detail later emerged that reflects the seriousness of the situation and just how close one group of civilians came to danger: Just six minutes after its launch, a China Southern Airways passenger plane passed directly through the path one missile had taken.

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Kim Jong-un allegedly orders entire extended family of executed uncle killed

Remember the good old days, when North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il was just the right combination of diminutive, bumbling and evil to make the country at once problematic yet adorable? Well, Jong-il’s son and recently-ascended heir to the North Korean throne, Kim Jong-un, seems hellbent on making sure North Koreans are the go-to Hollywood antagonists for the next 20 years’ worth of action movies, with unpredictable and combative behavior towards the international community and human rights violations far more brazen and horrific than even his notoriously unpredictable father dared.

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North Koreans reportedly forced to memorize Kim Jong-un’s entire 26-minute New Year speech

All around the world, people celebrate New Year’s Day in different ways, most with a sense of optimism that a new year means a new chance at achieving their dreams. However, in North Korea it’s a time of enormous anxiety for the people. Reports out of China claim that North Korea’s New Year is rung in with a speech by Kim Jong-un, and by his order everyone in the country must commit the entire speech to memory.

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