Pyongyang's Foreign Policy: Continuity and Change

Abstract

This article examines the possible courses of North Korea's foreign policy in the 1990s. Pyongyang's traditional and current foreign policy is shown to pursue related goals of legitimacy, security, and development. In examining the operational environment of Pyongyang's foreign policy decisions in the next decade, the author emphasizes that changes in the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, and South Korea may force North Korea to soften its hardline foreign policy. Similarly domestic pressures, particularly from a weakening economy and a changing military balance on the peninsula, also suggest that North Korea will move toward supporting meaningful inter-Korean dialogue. Finally changes in the North Korean decision-making elite should also encourage a readjustment of foreign policy priorities. The author suggests there will be incremental change in North Korea's foreign policy in the 1990s, rather than the continuity of previous decades.