( CNN ) -- Kim Jong Il 's death comes only days before 2012 , the 100-year anniversary of the birth of North Korea 's founder and Kim 's father , Kim Il Sung . North Korea 's long-planned celebration of this anniversary will now be pre-empted by collective shows of mourning ( but perhaps few real tears for Kim Jong Il ) , uncertainty despite clearly laid plans for succession and heightened strategic anxiety among North Korea 's neighbors . Over the last two years , Kim had put into place a succession plan ( similar to the one his father had put into place for him ) by naming his third son , Kim Jong Un , to key posts in the Korean Workers ' Party and National Defense Committee . Just as Kim Jong Il was named head of the funeral committee for his father in 1994 , Kim Jong Un will lead the funeral committee for his father . There will be the compulsory large crowds of mourners in the streets of Pyongyang to honor Kim Jong Il . A collective leadership , including top party and military leaders and relatives of Kim Jong Un , will provide guidance . Kim Jong Il observed a three-year `` mourning period '' before he formally took the reins of leadership and began participating in public functions . No one knows if this delay , which coincided with North Korea 's famine , was also a result of internecine leadership struggles . Will the new succession unfold according to plan ? North Korea 's political system is closer to a dynasty than a modern state , but it can no longer live in isolation from the modern world . Kim Jong Il was successor-in-waiting for two decades , his son only two years . Kim Jong Il came to power in his 50s ; Kim Jong Un in his late 20s . North Korea 's system is less centralized and possibly less capable of exerting political control in 2011 , compared with 1994 , since money has replaced ideological loyalty as the essential ingredient for getting ahead . Kim Jong Il allowed institutions -- with the exception of the military -- to atrophy before belatedly revamping the party apparatus in September 2010 . The system is fragmented and stovepiped so that only the leader can exercise control . A vacuum at the top could lead to bureaucratic infighting , with no person able to step in and exert authority across institutions . The worst case would be anarchy or infighting among bureaucratic factions for political control . The main advantage that Kim Jong Un has is that the core leadership knows that if it does n't hang together , it will hang separately . There is no viable alternative for survival among elites if the regime fails . World reacts to Kim Jong Il 's death . North Korea 's neighbors will watch developments warily , but they will also be watching each other as closely as they watch Pyongyang , if not more so . For some time , China has pulled out the stops to underwrite economic stability in North Korea , and it fears that South Korean intervention to restore order in North Korea might lead to a reunified peninsula allied to the United States . South Korea fears that the North 's economic dependency on China will give China political leverage to deny South Korea the ability to lead the way to Korean unification . The United States worries that either instability or desperation may lead to proliferation of North Korean bombs or fissile material . Russia and Japan also have interests that lead them both to prefer stability on the Korean peninsula . An unstable North Korea is a hot potato : No one wants to own it , but strategic fears forestall effective cooperation among its neighbors . North Korean instability would require extensive resources just at the moment when the world is cash-strapped . For this reason , North Korea 's neighbors will exercise caution , keep their fingers crossed and hope against hope that North Korea 's new leadership can chart a more reformist ( and less nuclear ) path than did Kim Jong Il . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Scott Snyder .
Scott Snyder says Kim Jong Il 's death introduces uncertainty , anxiety in region . He says succession differs from Kim Jong Il 's in 1994 ; it 's unclear how it will unfold today . He says a vacuum at the top could lead to infighting for political control . Snyder : Neighbors , rest of world fear instability , desperation may fuel nuclear proliferation .