EAI Asia Security Initiative Working Paper No. 12   Author Dr. Kim, Research Fellow at Korea Institute for National Unification, received his doctoral degree at Seoul National University, and currently serves as a standing committee member of the National Unification Advisory Council and a policy advisor at the Ministry of For-eign Affairs and Trade. His research is focused on North Korean human rights, aid to North Korea, and inter-Korean humanitarian agendas. Dr. Kim has published numerous research papers and briefs. Some of his most recent briefs are “Daebukjiwongwa gungmin-jeok habui” (Aid to North Korea and the National Consensus), “Yueningwollejimgwa buk-haningwon: ‘jeollyak’gwa ‘gwangye’reul jungsimeuro” (The UN Human Rights Regime and North Korean Human Rights: With “Strategy” and “Relations” at the Center), “Helsingki choejonguijeongseoui ui uiwa teukjing: ingwonuijereul jungsimeuro” (Meaning and Fea-tures of Helsinki’s Final Act: With the Human Rights Agenda at the Center).             I. Introduction   In the 1990s, food shortages in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) caused an impassable systemic crisis that forced Pyongyang to request emergency aid from the United Nations and the international community. During this period, a great many North Koreans crossed the border into China despite the DPRK regime’s threat of punitive measures. From the defectors, stories about the deterioration of human rights in the DPRK began to spread to the international community.   North Korea is on a watch list under the UN’s Human Rights Resolution, indicating the UN’s concern for human rights conditions in the DPRK. The resolution “The Situation of Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” represents a decision of all member countries. Although it is not legally binding as resolutions of the UN Security Council are, adoption of this resolution nevertheless serves to put extra pressure on the North Korean regime, both politically and diplomatically. The North Korean regime views this resolution, publicizing human rights realities in the North, as a political conspiracy designed as a negative blow to North Korea’s national security. In spite of the DPRK’s rejection and denial, “The Situation of Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” works as a tool has a significant impact on the North Korean regime’s survival strategy.   Considering the current circumstances of international politics, gangseongdaeguk(a strong and prosperous state), North Korea’s survival strategy to maintain its supreme dictator, can be ridiculously erroneous in the twenty-first century. The new century’s platform of international politics requires not just wealth and power, as that of the nineteenth century did, but also the soft values—such as knowledge, human rights, and preservation of the environment. The platform is thus becoming complex. For example, processes of development cooperation in the current international community no longer simply define the concept of “poverty” as “lack of wealth.” Observers now pay more attention to comprehensive and multi-faceted characteristics of “poverty,” including “injustice” and “deprivation.” These changes in the global platform make clear that another look at North Korea’s survival strategy is necessary. What does the North Korean regime need in order to come up with a survival strat   egy that is appropriate to this complex platform of the new age? A comprehensive reform in the DPRK’s perception of human rights is a lynchpin for the North’s future development strategy. If the DPRK just pretends to adopt the international standard of human rights and does not fundamentally transform its behavior, it will be difficult to expect future international support for North Korea.   In the future, it would be wise if North Korea adopted the human rights agenda insofar as it does not threaten the regime’s safety and survival. North Korea must seriously consider whether it could survive in the twenty-first century should it persist in approaching human rights issues as a threat to the regime. In other words, Pyongyang has no other option but to agree to human rights concerns and search for survival strategies in tandem with the international community. This paper looks at the implications of the human rights agenda for North Korea’s survival strategy, and in addition, it analyzes and suggests a direction in which North Korea must approach human rights issues in order to succeed in its prosperity strategy.   II. Human Rights Awareness in the Military-First Era: Content and Evaluation   1. Perceiving the Human Rights Issue as a Threat to the DPRK Regime’s Security   In the 1990s and in the military-first era, the DPRK’s perception of human rights was established based on the fear of threats from the outside. The fall of Communism and Pyongyang’s own evaluation on the causes of the fall greatly affected the way Pyongyang understands human rights. In the 1990s, when the Soviet Union and communist states in Eastern Europe collapsed, North Korea was faced with a grave threat to its national security. The North Korean regime believed that the expansion of freedom and human rights and the subsequent escapes of the residents en masse were the main causes of the fall of Communism. The DPRK regime took a special caution to restrict the inflow of information, which it believed to have shifted public perception. For this reason, the international community’s criticisms of human rights violations were interpreted as a security threat. To support this assumption, the regime spoke of the war in Iraq as an exemplary case that revealed the covert intention of the United States and the international community to topple the regime in North Korea.   North Korea misunderstood the international community’s strategy as one of bringing down the socialist system and regimes, and justifying its actions in the name of human rights. The North defines the world order as a battle between imperialism and self-reliance, and human rights as a weapon of imperialism. The DPRK argues that the ambition of the imperialists, which is to dominate the world, never changes but only their methods do. In short, human rights are being used as a tool of the imperialists in dominating the world, in the eyes of the North Korean authorities.   The North Korean regime particularly emphasizes that the “human rights attack” is a strategy to ruin Socialism, and believes that this strategy must be countered considering the context of the system’s security. To put it another way, the Western way of public discussion of human rights is nothing but a nominal reason that Westerners employ in order to bring down Socialism. At the core of that strategy, North Korea points out, lies the proliferation of human rights awareness and support for anti-regime forces—the final goal of which is the fall of Socialism and its core values such as solidarity and collectivism. According to Pyongyang, the Soviet Union and other Socialist states in Eastern Europe fell because they failed to see through the toxic intentions hidden behind the “human rights attack,” and therefore no effective management measures were developed against such a strategy. Looking back on this historical lesson, North Korea claims that it must prepare a fierce ideological front line against Western tactics for the protection of the Socialist system. In short, the North Korean regime is taking a security approach in dealing with human rights issues.   Pyongyang argues that there is not one absolute standard for human rights. Due to the differences in cultures, there cannot be a single standard for human rights that is applied to every state. Therefore, the insistence of Western states to apply “their way” of human rights to North Korea, regardless of the differences, can only be interpreted as a strategy to conquer the world. North Korea also applies this argument against globalization. For North Korea, globalization is another strategy to conquer the world based on Western values, in particular, American values. North Korea calls it “homogenization.” Through this homogenization, the North Korea asserts, Western states are trying to turn the entire globe into one free world, and then subordinate and assimilate all the people to their system. In particular, North Korea criticizes the United States for trying to “Americanize” other states by setting its standard of human rights as a global standard. In this way, the North Korean regime perceives Western and American diplomatic strategy to impart the values of human rights as a threat to their system...(Continued) 

EAI Asia Security Initiative Working Paper No. 11   Author Dongho Jo is a professor of North Korean Studies at Ewha Womans University. Before joining the university in 2007, he had worked at Korea Development Institute for 16 years as senior fellow and director of North Korean economic studies. He was graduated from Seoul National University and received Ph.D. degree in economics from University of Pennsylvania in 1991. He has also had lots of professional experiences. He is now policy advisor for chief secretary to the President of Korea for diplomacy and national security, advisor for the national assembly budget office, advisor for the advisory council on democratic and peaceful unification for the President of Korea, advisor for promoting inter-Korean exchanges and cooperation at ministry of unification, etc. His research areas are mainly the North Korean economy and inter-Korean cooperation.         I. Introduction   The Kim Jong-il era of North Korea is an era of military-first politics. Military-first politics is a survival strategy of North Korea that directs every policy area. It was chosen while North Korea went through extreme difficulties derived from the collapse of the socialist bloc in the early 1990s and the “Arduous March” in the mid-1990s. No matter how dire the situation was, Kim Jong-il could not possibly abandon socialism and introduce an active opening and reform policy. Thus a military-first strategy was an inevitable choice for North Korea in the 1990s.   Necessarily this military-first strategy brought about changes in traditional economic strategy. In the Kim Il-sung era, economic strategy had made developing heavy industry and simultaneously developing light industry and agriculture a top priority. According to the military-first principle, however, the focus shifted from heavy industry to the military industry. The principle also implied that all economic fields had to be sacrificed save for the development of the military.   What were the reasons for adopting the economic strategy of the military-first era and what were the underlying motives? Can such an economic strategy succeed? If it is bound to fail, what kind of strategies could come next? What would be the role of South Korea and neighboring countries to expedite the economic development of North Korea?   This paper seeks to answer these questions. It concludes that North Korea's economic strategy in the military-first era was positive for handling economic difficulties in the short run but could not help producing negative effects on the economy in the long run and finally bringing about the collapse of the North Korean regime. Therefore, this paper suggests that North Korea must abandon its existing economic strategy and adopt a new one if it wants to avoid collapse in the future.   II. Economic Strategy in the Military-First Era   1. Concept and Contents   According to North Korea, the military-first era is defined as “the era where all problems occurred in the process of revolution and reconstruction should be solved by the military-first principle.” Giving priority to the military means that “military affairs take precedence over others and strengthening the military industry should be treated preferentially.” North Korea has been propagating the military-first principle as a “new and ingenious idea” created by Kim Jong-il. In this sense, North Korea is criticizing Karl Marx by implying that he overlooked the importance of the military industry. North Korea is also criticizing Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin in their emphasis on heavy industry and lack of “the right view on the strategy of the economic development.”   It was natural that North Korea’s economic strategy had started to focus on the military industry as the military-first era emerged. Such a strategy is called the economic strategy in the military-first era, which means putting the top priority on developing the heavy industry and simultaneously developing light industry and agriculture. According to the Gyungje Yeongu or Economic Studies, the most important North Korean quarterly economic journal, Jae-Seo Kim (1999) is the first article that emphasized the importance of the military industry and Seong-Hyeok Lee (2001) is the first one that connects the military-first principle and the military industry. The first article that includes “military-first” in the title is Dong-Nam Kim (2001), but it did not actually cover the military industry. The review of the articles in Economic Studies concludes that the discussions systematically analyzing the reciprocal relationship between the military-first principle and the military industry had not been initiated until the work of Lee (2003) and Park (2003).   Although economic strategy in the military-first era purports to mean that light industry and agriculture are to be developed simultaneously, what it actually means is that light industry and agriculture should be sacrificed in order to develop the military industry. In other words, the military industry is the “lifeline of building a strong and prosperous country” and it is the “fundamental economic principle in the military-first era” to develop the military industry. Thus “the government expenditure must be invested in the military industry before any other industry” and “the necessary inputs such as workers, facilities, raw materials, and electricity must be provided preferentially for the military industry.” Furthermore, Cho (2005) explains that what economic strategy in the military-first era really means is that the advancement of light industry and agriculture is needed to reinforce the military industry and that the military sector is the top priority among all sectors of the economy.   North Korea is using the term “military industry” as the “munitions industry.” For instance, Kim (2005, 109) defines "the military industry” as an industry to supply modern arms. In fact, North Korea divides its production sectors into three categories: munitions production, producer goods production, and consumer goods production, and the munitions industry is defined as the industry that produces materials used for military purposes. Thus North Korea says that “the munitions industry is the same as the military industry since the munitions industry contributes to defending North Korea from military attacks by the imperialist countries.”   2. Logic   What is the logic behind the economic strategy in the military-first era and how does North Korea justify such a strategy? According to North Korea, the goal of economic activities in a socialist society is to guarantee the independent and creative lives of workers just as it is to produce surplus value for the properties of the bourgeoisie in a capitalist society. The independent and creative lives of workers consist of two parts. First, people have to be independent as the owners of the society and their independence is secured by protecting socialism from the invasion of imperialism. Second, people must enjoy abundant and civilized lives that are guaranteed by fulfilling material needs.   North Korea explains that the first part is more important than the second part because it is impossible to improve people’s living standards unless socialism can be protected from the aggression of imperialism. In other words, people’s wealth is meaningless if they remain slavish. So any other industry cannot be more important than the military industry and without its development, national security cannot be ensured and economic improvement cannot be achieved. It is to say, "we can live without a lollipop but not without a bullet" and "it is human nature to prefer living in an independent country even if food and clothes are much worse than living in a colonized country.”   Undoubtedly light industry and agriculture will decline if the military industry is regarded as the top priority, since the funds to invest are limited. As a result, they will influence people's living standards in a negative way. But North Korea is insisting that "the military-first principle is not sacrificing people's living standards by focusing on the military industry. It is not only to protect the nation and socialism but also to provide better lives for the people." However, North Korea does not present the specific logic of how it is going to improve people's living standards.   Then how will economic strategy succeed in the military-first era? North Korea claims that the voluntary work of workers based on their revolutionary ideas is the basic means and that “revolutionary military spirit” makes them achieve a higher level of effort for their voluntary work. To answer the question why “revolutionary military spirit” is required, North Korea explains that every era needs the spirit of the times and thus they need a revolutionary military spirit as North Korea enters the new era of the military-first principle.   3. Economic Strategy in the Kim Il-sung Era   Economic strategy in the Kim Il-sung era can be summarized as putting top priority on developing heavy industry and simultaneously developing light industry and agriculture. So the difference of the economic strategies between the Kim Il-sung era and the military-first era is whether top priority is placed on heavy or military industry.   North Korean literature indicates that the economic strategy of the military-first era is not separate from that of the Kim Il-sung era and in fact inherits the latter. The reasons can be explained as follows. First, the military industry is closely related to heavy industry because heavy industry is the foundation of the military industry, and the military industry induces the rapid development of heavy industry. Second, the military and heavy industries share common factors in terms of physical and technological characteristics. For instance, the weapons industry, which is the core of the military industry, is the machine industry, which belongs to heavy industry. Third, the development of heavy industry is a precondition for the development of the military industry since the products of the heavy industry, such as fuel, electricity, equipment and facilities are the inputs of the military industry.   In addition, North Korea claims that Kim Il-sung did actually stress the importance of the military industry and endeavored to reinforce it. For example, he noted that that "the modern military industry is one of the most important areas in building self-reliant national economic foundation” and he accentuated the “importance of the military industry in his entire leadership period.” There also exist articles enumerating the cases of building factories for the military industry since 1945. But the economic strategy in the military-first era is different from that of the Kim Il-sung era since it is clear that the top priority in each strategy is not the same. The reason why North Korea asserts two strategies is basically identical, based on the realistic environment in which they cannot deny the legacy of Kim Il-sung...(Continued)

EAI Asia Security Initiative Working Paper No. 10   Author Young-Sun Ha is a professor in the department of international relations at Seoul National University and Chairman of Global Net 21 at East Asian Institute. Professor Ha received both his B.A. and M.A. from Seoul National University, and received his Ph.D. in international politics from University of Washington. He served as Director of Center for International Studies, Seoul National University, Director of American Studies Institute, Seoul National University, President of Korea Peace Studies Association, and research fellow at Center for International Studies in Princeton University and Center for International Peace in Stockholm. Coauthor of East Asian Community: Myth and Reality (2008), Transformation of World Politics (2007), Network Knowledge State (2006), North Korean Nuclear Crisis and Peace on the Korean Peninsula (2006), Korean-American Alliance: A Vision and a Roadmap (2006), Korea's Grand Strategy for a New Century: Weaving a Network State (2006), Korean Diplomatic History and the Study of International Politics (2005), New Perspective of Changing World (2004), 100 Years Plan for the Korean Peninsula in the 21st Century (2004), and World Politics of Cyberspace (2001).         The North Korean leadership has officially declared that North Korea will become a gangseongdaeguk, or “strong and prosperous state,” by 2012. But the outlook is grim. Despite its efforts to develop a nuclear military-first ideology, North Korea is walking down the path of deepening insecurity and uncertainty, followed by additional excessive security measures. Its currency reform was made to no avail. Excessive spending for security has made it impossible for Pyongyang to invest sufficiently in culture, the environment, and information technology, which are all necessary aspects of developed states in the twenty-first century. Last, Kim Jong-il’s dire health condition has led Pyongyang to the inevitable next succession, and it is unclear whether his successor, Kim Jong-un, will persist in military-first politics or redirect the country to an economy-first politics.   In the 1990s North Korea was faced with three hardships. It experienced the fall of communism in 1991, and it had to bear the death of Kim Il-sung in 1994. Then, after going through the “Arduous March,” a terrible famine that killed significant number of the total population, the second Kim’s regime raised a new banner in 1998 to build a gangseongdaeguk as a goal of the state for the twenty-first century. In the same year on May 22, Rodong Sinmun (Newspaper of the workers) described the word as defining an “audacious blueprint to lead the country and shine upon the new century.” The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said that “numerous states and people had attempted to achieve a lasting power and prosperity, but history had yet to see a perfect gangseongdaeguk.” It emphasized that the DPRK would start by building a “nation of strong ideology” with Kim Il-sung at the center, then establish “‘mighty armed forces” as the pillar for the revolution, and last add a “flourishing economy.” “That is Our General’s [Kim Jong-il’s] own way of gangseongdaeguk” (Rodong Sinmun, May 22, 1998).   Pyongyang designated the year 1999 to be the turning point for gangseongdaeguk in the 1999 New Year's Joint Editorial. Now ten years have passed, and it is still suggesting its way of gangseongdaeguk, with the three pillars of political ideology, military, and economy, as the survival strategy for the twenty-first century. With political ideology and military already established to some extent, the DPRK is placing emphasis on the economy, which might improve the standard of living as well as help develop heavy industry (Rodong Sinmun, January 1, 2010).   In June 16, 1999, in a joint article titled “Our Party’s (Worker’s Party) Military-First Politics Is Invincible,” Pyongyang claimed that “the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK)'s policy of giving priority to military affairs is a powerful policy that ensures a decisive victory in long-term confrontation with imperialism.” It added that “it is the perfect mode of politics in the present times.” Also, the DPRK explained that “military-first politics is a mode of leadership which solves all problems arising in the revolution and construction on the principle of giving top precedence to military affairs and pushes ahead with the socialist cause as a whole, putting forward the army as the pillar of the revolution.” According to these writers, military-first politics is a means to strengthen the revolutionary army, guarantee the independent status of the people, and maximize the creative roles of the people (Rodong Sinmun, June 16, 1999).   The DPRK explained that “changes in circumstances around the Juche state” and “unprecedented hardships in the face of the revolution” are the reasons for Kim Jong-il’s decision to focus on military-first policy in the mid-1990s. The fall of the communist bloc, the death of Kim Il-sung, the military threat from the United States, and the Kim Young Sam administration’s hard-line North Korea policy are the four factors Pyongyang listed as alarming “changes in circumstance.” As for the “unprecedented hardships,” the following three factors were spelled out: first, the collapse of the communist market, which accounted for 70-80 percent of North Korea’s overseas exports, seriously undermined North Korean economy; second, the financial sanctions by the United States and Japan “completely blocked international finance channels” and “strangled North Korea by economic means”; last, “years of natural disasters such as floods, tidal waves, and drought” befell North Korea. As a consequence, shortages of food, fuel, and energy ensued and the Arduous March began. The DPRK records the situation of that time as follows: “History records the 900 days of the Leningrad Blockade as the most catastrophic event. But our whole country, not one city, [has been] surrounded by enemies for much longer than 900 days. These enemies are not one but numerous imperialists attacking us every single day. This is truly unprecedented” (Kang 2002; Y. Kim 2005; Chun 2004; B. Kim 2005).   In order to overcome the Arduous March, the DPRK set January 1, 1995, as the first day of the military-first era, but it was not formalized until 1998. At the first meeting of the Tenth Supreme People’s Assembly held on September 5, 1998, Kim Jong-il was promoted to Chairman of the National Defense Commission and the DPRK constitution was revised to establish military-first politics with the National Defense Commission in the center. On that day, Kim Young-nam, who gave the welcoming address, described the role of the Chairman of the National Defense Commission as “the highest post of the state with which to organize and lead the work of defending the state system of the socialist country and the destinies of the people; and strengthening and increasing the defense capabilities of the country and state power as a whole through command over all the political, military and economic forces of the country. It is also a sacred, important post which symbolizes and represents the honor of our country and the dignity of the nation” (Rodong Sinmun, Sept. 7, 1998).   Decline of Military-First Politics   Military-first politics, which was chosen as a new political means to build twenty-first-century gangseongdaeguk, brought about the exact opposite of what was intended: a vicious circle of failing security, economy, and politics.   Vicious Circle of the North Korean Nuclear Issue   The primary goal of military-first policy was protection of the Kim Jong-il Suryong or Great Leader Direct Rule system at all costs when the socialists’ international order collapsed. In the “Agreed Framework between the United States of America and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in 1994,” the United States proposed construction of a light-water reactor and provision for heavy-water reactor in return for a complete freeze on the North Korean nuclear program as well as the disassembling of existing nuclear facilities. The United States also proceeded with negotiations to improve the relationship with the North, but the DPRK did not abandon developing nuclear weapons, because it considered them the last hope for the security of the system. The efforts of the Clinton administration made it possible to hold a Washington meeting with North Korea, but due to Pyongyang’s uncompromising demands for excessive security, the United States failed to achieve tangible results. Furthermore, after 9/11, the United States began to treat nuclear proliferation and terrorism not merely as a matter of global security but as a matter of highest national security. This implies that North Korea’s nuclear program became a matter of life and death for both Washington and Pyongyang.   The second DPRK nuclear crisis began when a high-enriched uranium (HEU) program was brought to the table by the U.S. Deputy Minister of the Asia-Pacific James Kelly, who visited Pyongyang in early October 2002. In the end, the Six-Party Talks, which began with Beijing’s mediation, tentatively agreed on the September 19 Joint Statement in 2005. But the core four elements of this Joint Statement, “North Korea’s nuclear abandonment,” “financial support,” “normalization of relations,” and “peace system,” faced the same fate that befell the “Agreed Framework between the U.S. and the DPRK in 1994”: no practical outcome. The DPRK demanded a lifting of economic sanctions, financial support, establishment of a peace system, recognition of the North Korean regime, and improvement in U.S.-DPRK relations as preconditions for abandoning its nuclear program. On the other hand, the United States emphasized verifiable nuclear abandonment prior to any progress in other areas (Ha 2006).   As expected, the Six-Party Talks failed to reach any agreement due to financial sanctions against North Korea, involving Banco Delta Asia (BDA) in Macao, and Pyongyang launched a nuclear test in October 2006. In 2007, both sides agreed to the three fundamental steps to fulfill the Joint Statement—disable the facilities, report the progress, and finally denuclearize—but they failed to narrow the gap in the steps for report and verification. North Korea soon declared the annulment of nuclear negotiations in April 2008 and restored its measures of freeze and dismantlement to its formal conditions. On May 25, 2009, it launched a second nuclear test. The North Korean nuclear issue repeated the vicious circle of economic sanctions and nuclear tests with no viable solution. In early October 2009, Chairman Kim Jong-il met with Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and announced: first, “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” was the will of his deceased father, Kim Il-sung; second, the hostile relations between North Korea and the United States must be improved through bilateral talks between the two; and last, the DPRK intended to participate in the multilateral talks including the Six-Party Talks depending on the results of bilateral talks with the United States (Rodong Sinmun. October 6, 2009). In early May 2010, Kim Jong-il repeated these conditions during his visit to Beijing (Rodong Sinmun, May 8, 2010.   However, the fall of nuclear military-first politics is only a matter of time. Nuclear weapons of the Suryong system provide a warrant not for life but for death. If the North keeps rejecting the strategic decision to abandon the nuclear program, the U.S.-led economic sanctions will be intensified, and the possibility that the United States and China would implicitly allow an emergence of a non-nuclear, pro-Chinese regime in the North will mount. After 9/11, the United States has been placing top priority on eliminating weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. North Korea would be sorely mistaken to expect the United States to allow its nuclear program in any case.   Failing in Economic Growth   The Kim Jong-il regime has put the banner of a gangseongdaeguk for its twenty-first-century nation building and emphasized military-first politics and ideology, military, and economy as the main focus of its efforts. While all of those are essential, the relative importance differs. Military-first politics is the top priority followed closely by a strong military, with economy last. Therefore, when the logic of the economy has clashed with that of military-first politics, the latter has always taken precedence (Ha 2000).   In the midst of deepening crisis, North Korea chose a military-first economic strategy to prioritize the defense industry over light industry and agriculture, even during the Arduous March. This decision can be seen as a desperate action taken at the brink of collapse after the fall of the communist bloc.   The military-first economy attempted a twenty-first-century version of wijǒng ch’ǒksa, or defense of Confucian orthodoxy and rejection of Christian heterodoxy —that is, a rigid way of looking at its own future in a dichotomy of self-reliance and subordination—outwardly, and domestically allocated its meager capital into heavy industry and defense, all of which failed to resolve the imminent financial crisis. In the end, Pyongyang carried out the “July 1 Measure” in 2002 and implemented “jonghabsijang,” or the “Comprehensive Market System,” in 2003. But even these efforts were carried out within the limits of the military-first economy, and North Korea’s economy went through negative growth for 10 years consecutively from 1990. Despite slight growth in the 2000s, North Korea’s GDP remains at 500 to 1,000 dollars per capita, one of the lowest in the world.   In a new attempt, Pyongyang carried out a currency reform in November 2009, and since 2010, it has been emphasizing the importance of light industry and agriculture. However, if it does not make a sweeping decision to emerge from the limits placed by military-first politics, the DPRK will inevitably fall deeper into financial crisis...(Continued)

EAI Asia Security Initiative Working Paper No. 8   Author Woo Seongji is currently an Associate Professor at the College of International Studies, Kyung Hee University. Before joining Kyung Hee, he worked as an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security (IFANS) from March 2003 to February 2005. Dr. Woo received his Ph.D. from Indiana University, Bloomington. His English articles include “The Park Chung-hee Administration amid Inter-Korean Reconciliation in the Détente Period: Changes in the Threat Perception, Regime Characteristics, and the Distribution of Power” (Summer 2009, Korea Journal), “Triangle Research and Understanding Northeast Asian Politics” (Summer 2003, Asian Perspective), “South Korea’s Search for a Unification Strategy” (Summer 2003, Orbis), and “Adversarial Engagement and Alliance Relations: Triangular Politics on the Korean Peninsula, 1988-94” (March 2001, Issues & Studies). His research interests include North Korean Politics, Inter-Korean Relations and International Relations Theory.         The division of the Korean nation into two separate political entities that came about with the defeat of Japanese imperialism continues after more than sixty years since it began. South Korea, or the Republic of Korea (ROK), has aligned with the United States and vi-gorously pursued a strategy of export-oriented development, which has resulted in re-markable economic growth and, in turn, laid the seeds for gradual democratization. South Korea is currently seeking to enter the rank of advanced-nation status.   Meanwhile, North Korea, or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), has allied with two continental powers, China and Russia, and has endeavored to build an au-tonomous planned economy with as little intervention from the outside as possible. Pyongyang’s self-imposed isolation under the slogan of Juche (self-reliance) has brought about economic stagnation and persistent backwardness. In the era of globalization and interdependence, the Kim Jong Il regime is making little effort to remedy its malfunctioning economic system and, rather, is focusing on protecting its regime security through the development of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. It will be difficult for the DPRK to escape its fragility and isolation so long as it sticks to its Military-First Politics and Mili-tary-First Economy.   In the early twenty-first century, the world is facing formidable challenges in the fields of human rights, environmental protection, climate change, the North-South divide, and so on. As a key member of the G20 Summit, South Korea is playing an active role in fighting and finding solutions to these problems. Seoul is beginning to transform itself from a rule-taker to a rule-setter as it has assumed a role as a link between the advanced states and the developing states on the global stage. It is making a positive wave to the creation of a new global economic order.   With the collapse of communism in the early 1990s, states are competing in a race for peace and prosperity. North Korea, however, is one of the few exceptions in this race. It is doubtful whether North Korea will be able to achieve the goals of democracy, opening, and growth along with South Korea if it continues with the grand strategy of Military First and nuclear armament. Yet it is urgent that North Korea struggle hard to escape from its stagnant identity as a “fortress state” and transform itself into a state that can capture the merits of both sea powers and land powers and become a truly “amphibious” power.   North Korea under Kim Jong Il has shown some hints of change as it sought reconcil-iation with South Korea and dialogue with the United States and Japan with the goal of eventual diplomatic normalization, and it practiced partial reform measures in the early 2000s. Yet these efforts have fallen short of satisfactory political, economic, social, and diplomatic change. The basic problem lies in the calculation of the current leadership, which views reform and opening as detrimental to the core interests of Pyongyang’s ruling circle. As long as North Korea sticks to its inefficient planned economy and strengthens its authoritarian rule over the people, it will not be able to reach the paths to either democracy or prosperity.   What would be necessary for North Korea to escape its isolation and backwardness and join the ranks of advanced states? Advancement can be defined in two ways: one as a process and the other as a final destination. As a process, the term refers to efforts to adopt and implement global standards; as a final goal, advancement means a situation where the actor itself becomes a creator of global standards. Therefore, North Korea’s advancement can be summarized as the sum total of Pyongyang’s proactive efforts to narrow the gap with extant global standards and/or to create its own path-breaking standards.   My purpose here is not to predict a most likely scenario for North Korea’s future under today’s conditions but to design a gradual roadmap for North Korea’s transformation on the assumption that its development into an advanced state is a necessity. This essay is thus a policy proposal to the current and future ruling elites of North Korea for changes that include a series of incremental steps toward advancement. Once the ruling circle in Pyongyang comes to the conclusion that Military First is no longer sustainable and the normalization of state governance is necessary, what is a possible roadmap for that trans-formation? What steps and programs are necessary for Pyongyang to enter the ranks of advanced states? How can it prevent a tragic collapse of the state in the form of either an implosion or an explosion? Instead of a revolution or a state breakdown, I suggest a less painful and less dramatic, incremental reform process composed of three stages: a first stage (the short term), a second stage (the medium term), and a third stage (the long term).   The first stage belongs to the period of decay: the regime’s internal and external con-tradictions deepen as the policies of Military-First Politics persist. The Military-First re-gime will be unable to find an exit for development and democracy. The second stage will be a transitional period when a new leadership emerges with the aim to get rid of Military-First governance. In this period, North Korea will opt for a partial reform and opening. In the third and final stage, North Korea’s unique Suryong (leader) system of governance will finally come to an end, and a tantalizing balance between the conservatives and the liberals, which characterizes stage 2, will be resolved by the victory of the latter. North Korea will enter a stage of fundamental transformation, following a motto of “wealth first” and “the people first.”   The Evolution of North Korean as a Fortress State   The Fortress State   A state can assume the benign characteristics of a provider or a protector, or it can take the villainous role of a predator exploiting its own people. How should we characterize the nature of North Korea as it now stands? The notion of a fragile or failed state is helpful in characterizing, or making sense of, the North.   Fragile states are those that are incapable of performing their necessary functions, and under these states people’s lives are heavily constrained. More specifically, such states do not (1) protect their people from violence, (2) provide the public goods that satisfy the basic needs of their people, or (3) possess a representative and unified government within a given territory (Lee J. 2008). Similarly, a failed state refers to a situation where the basic requirements for the provision of welfare, defense of national boundaries, and representa-tion of the people are not met. Collapsed states and fragmented states are extreme cases (Chesterman, Ignatieff, and Thakur 2005; Vinci 2008).   North Korea can be categorized as both a failing state, if not a failed one, and a fragile state. North Korea’s governance is not successful in that it fails to deliver goods and service that are basic to its people’s lives. However, North Korea stands apart from other fragile states in that it is at once fragile but also able to sustain its monopoly of power and is seen as threatening by its neighbors. The duality of economic frailty and military resilience gives North Korea a special status...(Continued)

Abstract Over the past 15 years, North Korea has pursued the military-first politics through nuclear weapons development, military-first economy and establishment of National Defense Commission to build a strong and prosperous state. However, military-first politics has failed to address the basic security, economic, and political challenges. Therefore, a two-step strategy for coevolution is required for Kim Jong-il’s successor to play a role as a new actor on the international stage in 21st century. The first step is ‘transition and reform,’ which means that North Korea needs to shift from the military-first politics to a economy-first politics consisting of three dynamics; denuclearized survival strategy, a complex networking peace system and economic reform and opening. This should also be accompanied by the coevolution efforts of neighboring countries including South Korea which is overcoming dichotomy between the previous Sunshine Policy and the current sanction-oriented policy. Thus, the new strategy will involve providing an inter-Korean, East Asian, and multilateral three-fold comprehensive peace system and forming a system of international cooperation to help North Korea promote economy-first policies. The second step is ‘transformation,’ which indicates that North Korea must go through a transformation to become a ‘complex networking country,’ not only in security and economy, but also in culture, environment, knowledge and politics to a new standard of civilization in the 21st century. As with the first step, the second step also requires coevolution efforts from the international community. In this regard, the establishment of an East Asian community and a complex networking effort among the United States, China, and South Korea needs to be followed in this process. If South and North Korea succeed in developing a complex network that meets the 21st century standard through coevolution and unification, the Korean Peninsula will show the possibility of forming a new standard of civilization.           The full text in Korean is available here

Abstract     This paper analyzes the significance of human rights issues in North Korea’s survival strategy and suggests a direction for North Korea to successfully design and promote its strategy under the international political arena where not only national prosperity and military power but also soft power such as knowledge, human rights, and environment issues. Today, because the U.N. has assessed North Korea as having poor human rights conditions, according to U.N. special procedure it has adopted human rights resolutions, levying political and diplomatic pressures on Pyongyang’s survival strategy. Therefore, North Korea needs a new set of strategy so that improvement in human rights issues and security concerns of the regime do not have a negative correlation. A two-tier change involving the U.N. and each individual country to coordinate the relationship is recommended, and the North should also develop policies to accept human rights values, combining sun-kyung (economy-first) and sun-min (people-first) rather than focusing on the security of the regime only. In addition, it is necessary to expand the cooperation network for human rights issues among the U.N., other individual countries and North Korea, to build a regional level human rights regime where North Korea can participate, and to promote cooperation between the Two Koreas.         The full text in Korean is available here

Abstract    This paper examines North Korea’s economic strategy under the Sun-Goon (military-first) system, shows the reasons for inevitable future failure of the present strategy, and discusses the measures for co-evolution of the Two Koreas and the international community. Since 2001, as the Sun-Goon was on the rise, North Korea has promoted economic strategy focusing mainly on the defense industry. However, there was a structural limit on the economic policy concentrated on political survival rather than economic growth and development, and particularly, it was applicable only to the domestic economy and did not include the strategy for external economic relations which was crucial for vitalizing economy. Therefore, to avoid economic decline and collapse of the system, and to realize growth and development, Pyongyang needs to abandon Sun-Goon, reform the system, and open its market. The role of South Korea and the international community in that process is to provide a friendly environment to North Korea’s implementation and reform of its advanced strategy, and to actively support capital, information and technology. It is also important to prevent the fatigue from reform and the expansion of the negative notions toward the transition. As being supportive as possible to the transition, South Korea should make extra efforts to take the opportunity for joint prosperity of the Two Koreas.         The full text in Korean is available here

Abstract   This paper examines the structural weakness of Sun-Goon(military-first) Politics as North Korea's military strategy and seeks to show a new strategy of transformation in North Korea's military affairs. It is a strategy that transforms North Korea's internal and external structures simultaneously. The North Korean problem can neither be solved by the changes in North Korea's external environment, nor by its own efforts for political and economic reform. The North Korean problem will be able to be resolved only when North Korea makes a strategic decision to give up its nuclear weapons and pursue political and economic reform while international society guarantees and supports its security and development. The essence of the strategy lies in how to resolve the Sun-Goon dilemma of oversecurity and surplus military affairs. This strategy consists of three stages. First, North Korea decides to give up its nuclear weapons when a new leadership rises after Kim Jong-Il, while international society guarantees its internal and external security. Second, North Korea gets out of the security dilemma by carrying out its pledge of nuclear renunciation and shifting the national strategy from Sun-Goon Politics to Sun-Kyoung(economy-first) Politics. Third, Sun-Goon Politics is completely replaced by Sun-Kyoung Politics, leading to arms reduction on the Korean peninsula and North Korea's joining of the Northeast Asian multilateral security cooperation.         The full text in Korean is available here