North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (center, wearing a straw hat) observes a test of key weapons systems, including missiles and naval guns, aboard the newly launched 5,000-ton destroyer Kang Kon on July 3. The vessel had previously run aground during its launching ceremony. The Korean Central News Agency reported the inspection on July 5.KCNA/YONHAP
Jeong Yong-soo
The author is an editorial writer and the director of the Unification and Culture Research Institute of the JoongAng Ilbo.
"The most urgent problem we face is food. It has created something close to anarchy. These days I visit only military units because I have no choice. At this point, the military is the only institution I can trust."
Kim Jong-il made that confidential remark on Dec. 7, 1996, before senior Workers' Party and Kim Il Sung University officials. North Korea was in the midst of the "Arduous March" when economic collapse, diplomatic isolation following the fall of Eastern European socialism and successive natural disasters left the regime facing its gravest crisis since its founding.
With the state's governing capacity faltering, Kim relied on the military as the regime's last pillar of stability. Rather than inheriting the presidency after his father's death, he elevated the National Defense Commission through the 1998 Constitution and made its chairmanship the country's highest office, formally institutionalizing the "military-first" policy.
Haruki Wada, professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo, described the change as the country's transformation from a "guerrilla state" rooted in anti-Japanese partisan traditions into a "regular military state" centered on a disciplined standing army.
Nearly 30 years later, Kim Jong-un has again placed the military at the center of national policy, but for different reasons.
During the first half of this year, he made 92 public appearances. Thirty involved military affairs, putting him on pace for the highest number of military-related activities since taking power.
In North Korea, a leader's inspection tours signal policy priorities. Kim Jong-il relied on the military to preserve a fragile regime. Kim Jong-un, by contrast, appears to view it as an instrument for expanding strategic leverage.
Having established nuclear deterrence, he is now accelerating the modernization of conventional forces. This year's military schedule has featured the commissioning of the Choe Hyon destroyer, inspections of strategic cruise missiles, tactical guided weapons, large-caliber rocket launchers and next-generation weapons programs.
While South Korea has debated issues such as wartime operational control and military education reform, North Korea has continued strengthening its military capabilities through concentrated investment.
For years, the international community tended to dismiss Pyongyang as too economically weak to alter the regional balance. Yet North Korea steadily advanced both its military and diplomatic position.
China and Russia, once partners in efforts to denuclearize North Korea, have gradually moved closer to Pyongyang. During the six-party talks in 2003, Beijing suspended oil exports to pressure the North. After the country's second nuclear test in 2009, Kim Jong-il reportedly remarked that China had reacted "extremely coldly" to the first test in 2006 but that North Korea had finally overcome "the great mountain called China."
Earlier this month, marking the 65th anniversary of the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, China reaffirmed its strategic partnership with North Korea. Mao Zedong once described the relationship as an "internal relationship" rather than ordinary diplomacy. Today, Beijing is far more willing to shield Pyongyang despite its continued provocations.
This shift reflects, at least in part, North Korea's long-term "nuclear immunity strategy."
According to some accounts, Kim Jong-il instructed the foreign ministry after the second nuclear test to create international "immunity" toward North Korea's nuclear program. The objective was to weaken global resistance by making the country's nuclear status gradually appear irreversible.
North Korea subsequently carried out four more nuclear tests and is now widely regarded as possessing a mature nuclear capability. Former U.S. President Donald Trump has referred to North Korea as a "nuclear state," while Victor Cha of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and other analysts have argued that complete denuclearization is no longer a realistic objective. Such assessments suggest Pyongyang's strategy has achieved considerable success.
That similar thinking is beginning to emerge in South Korea. Unification Minister Chung Dong-young recently indicated that the government should place greater emphasis on building a peace regime than insisting on immediate denuclearization, arguing that dialogue and a nuclear freeze may be more realistic in the current environment.
Monday marks the 73rd anniversary of the Korean War Armistice Agreement. Efforts to replace the armistice with a permanent peace regime should continue. But they should not become a pretext for accepting North Korea as a permanent nuclear power.
Recognizing Pyongyang's nuclear status would force South Korea to live indefinitely under a nuclear threat while increasing the risk of nuclear proliferation across Northeast Asia. It would also complete the very "nuclear immunity strategy" North Korea has pursued for years.
Against that backdrop, the inclusion of the goal of the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in last week's Asean Regional Forum chairman's statement remains an encouraging sign that the international community has not abandoned that objective.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
