North Korea's Foreign Policy Towards the United States

Abstract

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (hereafter referred to as the DPRK or North Korea) is an authoritarian one-party state under the rule of the Korean Workers' Party (KWP). The DPRK was established in 1948 under substantial influence of the Soviet Union, which invested Kim Il Sung as the leader of the new republic. Kim, who was only 33 years old and weak compared to his domestic political rivals at the time, was able to purge all adversaries and establish a cult of personality that is arguably unsurpassed in modern times. According to the 1998 DPRK Socialist Constitution, Kim Il Sung is the "eternal President of the Republic," and the "founder of the immortal juche (chuch'e) idea." Juche, which literally means "self-reliance," was introduced in 1955 and became the state ideology in the DPRK. Kim Il Sung's unrivaled authority and longevity enabled him to transfer power to his son Kim Jong Il upon his death in July 1994. Although the dynastic transfer of power was the first for a communist country, it is considered normal in a traditional neo-Confucian society. And despite DPRK claims that the KWP is a revolutionary mechanism for modernization, North Korea is very traditional in many respects, and the state arguably is more similar to a Choson Dynasty (1392-1910) monarchy than a revolutionary socialist state. Despite widespread expectations that the KWP and Kim family dynasty would collapse in the wake of socialism's demise in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, Kim Jong Il appears to enjoy firm political control even though the DPRK has lost its Soviet benefactor and suffered a massive famine and severe economic decline in the 1990s. International political change and domestic economic problems have forced Pyongyang to reassess its foreign policy and its policy towards the United States. North Korea is inherently insecure because of Korean division.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 01, 2006
Accession Number
ADA521368

Entities

People

  • Daniel A. Pinkston

Organizations

  • Naval Postgraduate School

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Counter WMD
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Cold War
  • Communist Countries
  • Economic Policy
  • Economic Sanctions
  • Foreign Policy
  • Governments
  • International Organizations
  • Korean War
  • National Security
  • North Korea
  • Security
  • South Korea
  • Treaties
  • United States
  • Ussr
  • Weapons Of Mass Destruction

Fields of Study

  • Political science

Readers

  • East Asian Political and Security Studies within the Soviet Union
  • International Relations, focusing on Korea-Africa and North Korea-South Korea relations, and Nigeria-Latin American Relations.
  • Military History of the United States in the 20th Century.