EAI Asia Security Initiative Working Paper No. 17

Author

Hwang, Jihwan is an assistant professor of the University of Seoul, Korea. Professor Hwang was an assistant professor of North Korean Studies at Myongji University, and a research fellow at the Institute for Unification Studies of Seoul National University. His research interests include East Asian international relations and security studies, focusing on the North Korean nuclear crisis. His main concern is how to explain North Korea’s foreign policy in terms of international relations theories. He published numerous articles, and his recent publications include “International Relations Theory and the North Korean Nuclear Crisis,” “Offensive Realism, Weaker States, and Windows of Opportunity: The Soviet Union and North Korea in Comparative Perspective,” “The Second Nuclear Crisis and U.S. Foreign Policy,” and “Rethinking the East Asian Balance of Power.” Professor Hwang received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

I. Introduction

Ever since Kim Il-sung’s death in 1994, the military-first policy has been maintained as Kim Jong-il’s principal strategy for governance and survival in North Korea. The policy’s effectiveness as a force in domestic politics and political propaganda is debatable, but its critical flaw is that it creates doubts as to whether it will be effective enough to ensure North Korea’s security and powerful state building in a rapidly changing world order.

The military-first policy is designed to enable North Korea to become a strong and prosperous state by 2012, but in fact it is restricting the development of nonmilitary sectors. Running the state through the army and focusing almost all of state capacity on the military disrupts the effective distribution of resources and aggravates the problem of an overweening military and an excessive emphasis on security. Thus despite its designers’ intentions, the military-first policy will inevitably fail as a national strategy.

Kim Jong-il initially adopted this strategy in order to facilitate the maintenance of his regime. There is a possibility that despite Kim Jong-il’s being aware of the policy’s its imminent failure, a lack of alternatives is forcing him to hold on to it. Insistence on this strategy will foster not the construction of a strong and prosperous state, but both external and internal ineffectiveness, weakening both the regime and the state, and eventually bring them down. On the other hand, if the current strategy is abandoned and North Korea makes new strategic decisions, its chances of survival will be greater and it will certainly be able to become a normal state in the international community.

This paper points out the structural problems that North Korea’s military-first policy entails, and proposes a new direction for development in a so-called coevolution strategy. Pyongyang could adopt it by modifying the military sector, aiming to transform North Korea from both the inside and the outside. The North Korean issue is not one which can be solved simply by changing the international community or the South Korean government’s North Korea policy. The problem with President Lee Myung-bak’s Grand Bargain or the Obama administration’s “Comprehensive Package” is that they lack programs that would transform the North Korean state itself. Meanwhile, due to the current domestic situation and the political environment on the Korean Peninsula, the possibility of the problem’s being successfully resolved by North Korea’s leadership by promoting a different autonomous reform program in the Chinese or Vietnamese style is rather low. In the beginning stages of reform there would be heightened socioeconomic instability due to the loosened grip on internal politics, and the leaders would feel increasingly threatened by their relative weakness compared to their strong South Korean neighbor. Therefore for the successful survival of North Korea, there must be a coevolution strategy consisting of giving up its nuclear weapons and promoting an autonomous reform program, while its neighboring states simultaneously ensure and support its safety.

The strategy proposed in this paper is not a completely new concept. Despite certain defects, former President Kim Dae-jung’s ”Sunshine Policy” and President Lee Myung-bak’s ”Denuclearization-Openness-3,000 Initiative” both aim for internal change in North Korea and simultaneous support from the international community. The discussions on the Korean Peninsula’s peace system during the Six-Party Talks follow the same context, aiming to shape North Korea’s strategy by changing the security environment of the Peninsula. However with the absence of mutual trust, such an approach is bound to take on a limited form, and a more fundamental strategy that satisfies both sides is required.

Advocating both guaranteeing the system and the giving up nuclear weapons may seem reckless and unrealistic, but the current environment surrounding the Korean Peninsula is actually quite favorable for resolving the North Korean issue. This situation becomes clearer if we understand that North Korea is facing a three-fold problem of nuclear weapons, economic crisis, and the succession of its leader. It also requires a fundamental reform in all other sectors, including politics, international relations, the economy, and the socio-cultural realm (Chun 2009). In order to achieve fundamental reform, the military-first policy must be abandoned and a new strategy needs to be devised. But given North Korea’s political situation, unless change in the political structure comes first, there is a very low chance that nuclear weapons will be given up and economic reforms will be carried out. In this context, a coevolution strategy aims to make North Korea decide its strategy regarding nuclear weapons and economic reforms during its process of achieving a stable succession. Such a strategy aims for an eventual shift from a “military-first policy” to an “economy-first policy.”

Coevolution strategy in the military sector aims to resolve the problem of “‘excess security” and excess caused by the military-first policy, the essence of which is giving up nuclear weapons. Just as in other sectors, it is composed of three stages. The first stage consists of North Korea declaring the shutdown of its nuclear weapons program in the process of the succession while the international community ensures external and internal security. The second stage is North Korea actually carrying out what it has promised and shaking off the security dilemma by moving from a “military-first policy” to an “economy-first policy.” The final stage results in the reduction of armaments of both South and North Korea, the latter participating in East Asian multilateral security cooperation after having adopted an entirely new approach to becoming a strong and prosperous state.

II. Understanding and Evaluating Military Strategy in the Military-First Era

1. Military Strategy in the Military-First Era

Kim Jong-il’s military-first policy can be interpreted as having succeeded and developed Kim Il-sung’s idea of prioritizing the military and applying this to national strategy during the era of armed struggle (Kang 2002, 17). Kim Jong-il said that “safeguarding and persisting in our socialism and completing the great achievement of revolution by using force is our Party’s unwavering will and conviction.” He added that he was not willing to pursue any changes, emphasizing that he had “reached a firm decision to overcome any hardship by relying on the strength of the gun.” (Jeon 2004, 15-16) However, it is said that Kim Jong-il’s policy is different from Kim Il-sung’s strategy to a certain extent, because there was formerly no party, state, or formal military during the process of nation-building and Kim Il-sung was mostly dependent on the proletariat class when conducting warfare against the Japanese. On the other hand, in a situation in which both a party and a state exist, Kim Jong-il’s military-first strategy insists on relying on strong military power represented by the North Korean People’s Army to protect socialism and face the international community’s hostile policies (Jeon 2004, 16-17).

This aspect is made evident in the “military before labor (先軍後勞)” terminology emphasized by the“military-first policy.” It is based on the notion that in the fulfillment of socialism the proletariat force can carry out its role only with the support of strong military power because even the proletariat force, which is the spearhead of the struggle for socialism, cannot escape the fate of getting enslaved if there is no strong military (Kang 2002, 22-30). Thus this perspective places more importance on the revolutionary spirit of the military rather than on that of the proletariat class, and regards the military not as a means but as the leading force of politics. This reflects how, with the end of the Cold War and the collapse of socialism, North Korea’s internal and external security dilemma has intensified and the proportion that the military sector takes in national strategy has increased accordingly.

In the end, there are two types of military-first policies: the “political strategy placing the military as the top priority of national affairs” and the “political strategy having the military as the core and main force.” (Jeon 2004, 19; Kang 2002, 19-22; Eom and Yun 2006, 150-151) In the perspective of military strategy, the former is for foreign security and the latter for internal stability of the regime.

(1) Military Strategy of the Military-First Era Aiming for External Security

North Korea claims that military-first policy is the “political strategy placing the military as the top priority in national affairs.” (Jeon 2004, 20-26) Because, it says, the international community, including the United, States, is menacing its right to exist, it is inevitable that the North Korean military sector be treated as of the utmost importance in order to be able to defend the state’s other duties in areas such as politics, economics, and culture. The existing traditional socialist theory was perceived to be based on a materialist view of history aiming to construct socialism with improvements in the economic sector such as in production, followed by the strengthening of the military sector. In other words, the military was thought to be reliant on the economic sector. North Korea asserts that a military-first policy works based on creative principles that differ from traditional socialist theory because it proposes first and foremost the strengthening of the military based on juche ideology (Jeon 2004, 21-23).

Because the military is perceived as the most important factor, the military-first policy devotes itself primarily to strengthening national defense. For this purpose, it is especially important to focus on developing the industrial sector of national defense because it is essential for establishing a defense system entirely for the people and the state, which would thus increase national defense capabilities. In addition North Korea emphasizes that unlike imperialism and an arms race, this type of politics aims to contain war and attain peace, and not to threaten the other states. Its goal is to become an invincible military power that is able to secure the state’s and nation’s rights to life and sovereignty, and guarantee the construction of a strong and prosperous state (Eom and Yun 2006, 156-167)...(Continued)