IntroductionThe economic recovery of North Korea has stagnated over the last two decades, the regime seemingly lacking the capacity to resolve food shortages and economic problems. Moreover, due to the recurrence of the nuclear issue and subsequent imposition of tighter sanctions against Pyongyang, not only has the scale of foreign aid decreased sharply, but the engagement of international donors in humanitarian assistance has also been greatly reduced. According to UN data, foreign aid to the country amounted to only USD twenty-four million in 2010, the lowest level since the international community began providing humanitarian assistance to alleviate the North Korean famine of the mid-1990s. It is widely accepted that the living standards of many ordinary North Koreans have deteriorated, a situation that is clearly reflected in the recent recurrence of food crises and malnutrition among its vulnerable population. Total food deficits for the 2010/11 fiscal year were estimated to amount to some 886,000 tons, and more than six million people were reportedly in urgent need of external food assistance.1 Such a nutritional situation and sluggish economic performance suggests that the rehabilitation of North Korea is unfeasible without international aid and the normalization of foreign relations, both of which may only be possible with the abandonment of its nuclear development program and a major shiftin economic policy direction.For South Korea and its neighboring countries, the North is a source of great regional turbulence, and its development of nuclear weaponry would likely alter the entire security situation of East Asia. Added to this, the food shortage and economic crisis possess a great likelihood of creating socioeconomic instability in the region. In this regard, the softlanding of North Korea's economic transition coupled with denuclearization is a critical goal for South Korea and its neighbors. Accordingly, it appears that a feasible institutional instrument for the amelioration of the regional instability caused by North Korea's economic problems and the nuclear stand-offis the establishment of a multilateral framework involving bilateral donors and international organizations. Indeed, it is necessary that the international community draws up a concrete blueprint for moving beyond its economic and diplomatic stalemate with North Korea.The effective provision and management of foreign aid is an important incentive in holding Pyongyang to its word in any treaty, as well as ensuring close cooperation among stakeholders. The establishment of one or more multi-donor trust funds (MDTFs) could thus be a feasible option for promoting resource mobilization and donor coordination of development assistance to North Korea.2 As almost all pooled trust funds implemented in developing countries encompass governance arrangements involving bilateral donors and multilateral organizations, the creation of trust funds for North Korea could provide a policy forum in which Pyongyang might engage with its international donors. The joint funding mechanism of the special trust fund would also help to ease the political burden currently shouldered by South Korea and neighboring countries directly involved in providing financial assistance to North Korea.At this point, we might consider the establishment of an agency for the coordination of aid to North Korea, provisionally named the North Korea Development Assistance Group (NKDAG), which would function as the principal MDTF governing body following agreement among international donors to set up the first special trust fund. Under a broad consultative framework for consolidating tripartite cooperation between North Korea, South Korea, and international donors, the NKDAG could provide an administrative mechanism for MDTFs.Considering the reconstruction and development benefits of MDTFs for developing countries, the establishment of special trust funds could help stimulate the economic rehabilitation of North Korea, thus creating a favorable environment conducive to the active involvement of foreign donors in the socioeconomic transformation of the country. …

IntroductionSince the death of Kim Jong-il in 2012, the international media has speculated whether the new leader, his son Kim Jong-un, will put economic development on his political agenda and open up the North Korean economy for foreign investors. In his new year's speech held in 2013, Kim Jong-un called for far-reaching reforms in the following year including an opening up of the economy to foreign investors and achieving better relations with South Korea.1 While skepticism remains as to whether an economic opening can be achieved in the short term, potential foreign investors need to focus on business opportunities and market attractiveness.While not yet being considered an emerging market by the major indices,2 the popular media ascribe the country basic potential to become an emerging market in the future due to its relatively large domestic market, with its population of 24 million inhabitants and due to its richness in natural resources (e.g., gold, silver, copper, magnesite, coal, uranium and iron ore). If economic reform takes place, Goldman Sachs, for instance, sees enormous growth potential in the North Korean economy.3 The bank's analysis of the North Korean economy assumed the value of domestic mineral resources at 140 times of the 2008 gross domestic product (GDP). However, the country has a relatively young and technologically educated labor force which is available at low labor costs of around USD 160 per month.4A comparatively small but increasing number of international investors have already ventured into business with North Korea. The Cairo-based firm Orascom established the first GSM mobile phone network there in 2008 and contributed to funding the construction of the 105-story Ryugyong Hotel, located in the capital, Pyongyang, that is planned to open in 2013 and which will be managed by the Swiss luxury hotel group Kempinski Hotels.5If North Korea fully opens up its economy to foreign investors, the business opportunities will be plentiful.The Ethical Dilemma SituationDespite potentially lucrative business prospects, international investors are at the same time faced with ethical dilemmas and substantial business risk when intending to invest in North Korea. From a theoretical point of view, ethics in business used to be defined as behavior that is consistent with the principles, norms, and standards of business practice that have been agreed upon by society.6 But what if society is not free to participate in political decision-making processes but is instead oppressed by a dictatorial leadership, as is the case with North Korea (more details will be provided in the further course of the study)? How should foreign investors respond to such an environment? Engage in business activities and risk receiving bad press that may cost them consumers in the firm's home country?7 Theoretically it is assumed that a country which violates human rights, in which legal arbitrariness prevails, in which corruption is high and which lacks predictable rules in business does not attract foreign businesses and remains economically backward.8 Firms usually weight chances, risks and ethical concerns in order to benefit from first mover advantages or to skip a venture in emerging markets.9 As this case will show, levels of tolerance towards ethical issues differ among countries that show an interest in doing business with North Korea.It has to be noted that research on North Korea is inherently difficult. Data availability and data credibility are typical problems. However, as foreign firms are already engaged in sponsoring North Korean athletes and media started reporting about those experiences, a decent base of information is made available in order to discuss ethical dilemma situations in international business. This is of particular value for research aiming at practical relevance and implications for managers.Achievements and International Recognition of North Korean AthletesThe North Korean sports industry is one of the sectors which is attractive to international investors since on the one hand it lacks financial resources, but on the other hand it has achieved international recognition ever since the soccer World Cup in England in 1966 when the North Korean team beat Italy 1-0 and made it to the quarter finals. …

IntroductionIf your enemy is the sine qua non of effective warfare and diplomacy, the United States has been badly served by those who claim expertise on Korea in Washington. It is now twenty years since a bipartisan consensus emerged inside the Beltway that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) would soon or explode, a mantra that began with Bush I and lasted through Clinton and Bush II, right down to the present. This was the hidden premise of the American pledge to build two light-water reactors to replace the Y¢ongby¢on plutonium complex in the 1994 Framework Agreement: since they wouldn't come onstream for eight or ten years, by then they would belong to the Republic of Korea (ROK).Iraq War architect Paul Wolfowitz journeyed to Seoul in the aftermath of the apparent American victory over Saddam to opine (in June 2003) that North Korea is teetering on the brink of collapse. In intervening years we heard Gen. Gary Luck, commander of U.S. forces in Korea, say (in 1997) that North Korea will disintegrate, possibly in very short order; the only question was whether it would implode or explode.1 In this he was plagiarizing another of our commanders in Korea, Gen. Robert Riscassi, who never tired of saying Pyongyang would soon or explode. (Riscassi retired in 1992.)When does the statute of limitations run out on being systematically wrong? But I know from experience that any attempt by outsiders to break through this Beltway groupthink merely results in polite silence and discrete headshaking. Korea's coming collapse is still the dominant opinion today.2In what follows I want to briefly examine this Washington consensus, and then attempt to explain why the collapse scenario was, is, and will be wrong. But my argument can be stated simply:* Korea is sui generis and not comparable to any other communist regime.* It is much less communist than nationalist, and less nationalist than Korean.* It draws deeply from the well of modern and pre-modern Korean political culture.* Its nationalism traces back 75 years, to a never resolved conflict with Japan.* Its legitimacy is entirely wrapped up with this anti-Japanese struggle.* It is a garrison state the likes of which the world has never seen.* Its military leaders take pride in having faced up to the U.S. military for six decades.* If it probably can't defeat anyone, it is still militarily impregnable.3* No foreign troops have been stationed in the DPRK since 1958.* It has always had close backing from China.* It also got backing from Moscow, but never had close relations with it.* It is run by a gerontocracy of solipsists who care nothing for what the outside world thinks.* This elite proved itself capable of starving hundreds of thousands to death while retaining power.* This elite has proved for more than 60 years that it knows how to hold onto power.Collapse or Overthrow?The leading Washington pundit on Korea is Nicholas Eberstadt, who has been with the American Enterprise Institute for about twenty years, and initially distinguished himself by using demographic data to pinpoint the wretched health care system and dramatic declines in life expectancy of the Soviet Union, several years before it fizzled. Since at least June 1990 he has been predicting the impending collapse of Korea,4 but his views are best sampled in his 1999 book, The End of Korea. (When a New York Times reporter asked John Bolton what the Bush administration's policy was on the DPRK, he strode to his bookshelf and handed him Eberstadt's book: that's our policy, he said.)The flaws in Eberstadt's end-of-North-Korea theme can help us understand the DPRK's post-cold war endurance. He enjoys arguing throughout the book that Korea has been wrong-wrong-wrong in all of its strategies from the word go, but he does not tell the reader that he brings purely liberal and capitalist assumptions to bear on a society that constituted for most of its existence the highly selfconscious anti-capitalist, somewhat as if Milton Friedman were to describe how stupid the Ayatollahs have been for not charging interest on loans. …

IntroductionThe problem of North Korea today is the problem of the contradiction of inversion, that is, the inverse relation of dictatorial regime capacity and social reform pressures that have been intensified under impoverished and marketizing socioeconomic conditions. Importantly, this contradiction is not an abstract, metaphysical, or speculative principle formulated in the realm of pure logic or pure theory. Instead, the contradiction is a concrete, empirical, and real social involving the actual momentum of millions of people in everyday life and the struggle of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) and Korean People's Army (KPA) elite to maintain its interests, privileges, and survival.While the Soviet-Stalinist-constructed North Korean party-army state-regime had been able to more or less contain the contradiction in the epoch of world Stalinism, with financial aid, fraternal trade, and material assistance from its allies and benefactors in the Soviet Union, Eastern Bloc, and China, the 1989 to 1991 liquidation of the Stalinist states and onset of the post-Soviet and post-COMECON era exacerbated the problems for the regime. North Korea confronted a crisis of compounded proportions: collapse of the bureaucratically planned economy, collapse of faith in Marxism-Leninism, collapse of discipline in the WPK, and, most catastrophically, collapse of the food-ration system.With the great famine of 1996 to 1999, an emergent market economy based on the spontaneous rise of petty trade and small proprietorship became the new social reality. Confronted with these conditions, the ruling group determined to secure its existence by distancing itself from Marxism-Leninism in 1992, emphasizing militaryfirst (songun) populism in 1998, adopting pragmatic socialism (shilli sahoejuui; markets plus planning) in 2002, and relinquishing communism in 2009. What the political-economic adaptations of the regime are indicative of is that the contradiction of inversion is moving North Korea into an alignment that is fundamentally in the interests of global capitalism.Contradiction of InversionHow is the contradiction of inversion constituted? North Korean studies scholars do not presently use the term, but its sense-content is axiomatic in empirical and predictive analyses of the contemporary North Korean socioeconomic and sociopolitical situation. A notable example is Un-Chul Yang's 2012 article Downfall of the North Korean State Economy in International Journal of Korean Studies, which speaks of from the bottom of and the rise of markets as a bottom-up process rather than a top-down process, resulting fundamentally from economic failure, financial bankruptcy, food shortages, and incapability of government to provide for the North Korean people.2As economic poverty is protracted and as markets at the bottom grow, the North Korean state-regime experiences declining political authority and decreasing influence of power.3 Summarizing the social process and its materially conditioned trajectory, Yang says:With constant economic difficulties, the reigning force of the dictatorial regime is, in fact, gradually loosening. The number of North Korean defectors is increasing, and corruption already seems to be out of control. In addition, the steady growth of private business will be an index to producing a new future.The pressure from the bottom of society to provide reform measures continues to increase as the capacity of the North Korean regime decreases. With the slowly shifting paradigm of the North Korean people and elites, the foundation for a market economy should gain strength in the near future.4What this description and prediction reveal is that the contradiction of inversion has four main factors: (1) progression of time, (2) social hierarchy, (3) dictatorial regime capacity, and (4) social reform pressures. The latter two factors, existing in the objective contexts of history and society, manifest a decrease-increase relation as a direct consequence of economic difficulties and a vertical opposition between the people and the elite. …

This article explains that key to understanding North Korean nuclear weapons motivations is the application of the explanatory frameworks of constructivism, liberalism, and realism to different time periods in North Korea: 1964 to 1994 (realism), 1991 to 2007 (liberalism), and 1991, 1994, and 2011 (constructivism). Notably, these periods coincide with the perceived security threat from South Korean-based U.S. nuclear arms until the erosion of Soviet support, the North Korean economic crisis and the value of nuclear weapons as an international-aid bargaining chip, and the expedience of nuclear disarmament. A realist approach toward North Korea from the 1990s to the present would be counterproductive, as the state has hardened itself against its adversaries and simultaneously needs economic and civil aid.

IntroductionThis article focuses on the role of identity in the formation of South Korea's foreign policy behavior. Given its geopolitical location at the intersection of neighboring powers' strategic and economic calculations, Korea has been profoundly influenced by the fluctuating regional environment. Indeed, it has inhabited different identities in relation to neighboring countries at different historical junctures. For example, throughout the Japanese occupation of 1910-1945, the Korean War of 1950-1953, and the Cold War, different identities took the form of opposition to Japan, and then North Korea, that is,. an adversarial identity; and, in the case of the U.S., an associational identity.With the demise of the Cold War it was assumed that tension on the Korean Peninsula would ease. In addition, the Republic of Korea's (ROK) dramatic policy shifttoward the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), exemplified in President Roh Tae-woo's 7/7 Announcement in 1988-calling for peaceful coexistence-generated an expectation that inter-Korean relations would improve. Indeed, the South's rapprochement toward the North during the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moohyun governments resulted in significantly improved relations. One outcome was the emergence of an affirmative associational national identity toward Pyongyang. However, these rapprochement approaches were abruptly halted by the Lee Myung-bak government.This alerts us to the problematized nature of the South's sense of national identity vis-a-vis the North. An affirmative identity collided with the archetypical adversarial and sat uneasily with serious concerns about Pyongyang's emerging nuclear ambitions, a development which had begun to reshape the post-Cold War regional security environment and to pose a serious challenge to South Korea. This article argues that the essential tension around the nature of changing ROK national identities toward the DPRK holds the key to understanding the sources of Seoul's different foreign policy behaviors.The article proceeds in three parts: firstly, it explores the constructivist analysis, which argues that identity-constructs drive a state's behavior. Building on a critique of the conventional constructivist approach, it suggests how the key concept, identity, recurrently addressed in conventional constructivist texts, might be refreshed, and introduces an alternative analysis of a state's foreign policy development. Secondly, it explores the formation of South Korea's national identity toward North Korea during the Kim Dae-jung (1998-2003), Roh Moo-hyun (2003-2008), and Lee Myung-bak (2008-) governments, and examines how national identity has been constructed and reconstructed in the interplay of domestic, regional and international political realities. It develops a typology that sets out the different ROK policy manifestations and investigates its foreign policy behavior by exploring the historical development of inter-Korean relations and examining the continuities and discontinuities of policy behavior toward North Korea from 1998 onwards. It traces the emergence of the contested nontraditional national identity adopted by South Korea (i.e., affirmative identification toward North Korea), examines how it shaped conceptions of national interests, and investigates subsequent policy outcomes. To conclude, it synthesizes and reflects on theoretical and empirical findings and briefly explores policy implications.Theoretical ApproachesStates determine policy in response to external threats, not only according to the distribution of power and interest, but also to the weight of ideas. The article focuses on how a state may develop a range of foreign policy options based on identity.Conventional ApproachesThe concept of identity has achieved scholarly recognition in recent mainstream international relations ( IR) debate. One result has been a marriage between mainstream IR schools of thought and conventional constructivism. …

NLL and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)The Northern Limit Line (NLL) is a disputed maritime extralegal boundary in the Yellow (West) Sea, dividing the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), commonly referred to as North Korea, and the Republic of Korea (ROK), commonly referred to as South Korea. Initially imposed in 1953 as a temporary measure in response to concerns about ROK President Syngman Rhee threatening the Armistice (AA),2 it was also a restraint on the DPRK. original purpose of the NLL remains: it is a mechanism to separate the two Koreas. was necessary because the Armistice Agreement, although granting military control of the islands to the commander-in-chief of the United Nations Command (UNC), did not give a clear position on the territorial waters surrounding the islands. Thus, the dispute includes both the legitimacy of the NLL itself and conflicting territorial claims to the waters surrounding the five islands. five islands are U-do, Sochong-do, Taechongdo, Paengnyong-do and Yeonpyeong-do.From a legal perspective, there are two major regimes that apply to the NLL dispute: the Armistice (AA) and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). full text of Article 15 of the AA is as follows: This Armistice shall apply to all opposing naval forces, which naval forces shall respect the water contiguous to the Demilitarized Zone and to the land area of Korea under the military control of the opposing side, and shall not engage in blockade of any kind of Korea.3The DPRK is bound under the AA to respect waters contiguous to the islands as ROK waters, but the international norm of the time, 3 nautical miles, has since become 12 nautical miles. Regardless, the NLL reserves for the ROK waters that go beyond the definition of contiguous, using either the 3-or 12-nautical-mile norms.The right of the DPRK to dispute the NLL has been disputed. Roehrig argues that the DPRK did not lodge a formal protest until 1973, and cites the Agreement on Reconciliation, Nonaggression, and Exchanges and Cooperation between South and North Korea.4 Article 11 of the agreement stipulates: The South-North demarcation line and the areas for nonaggression shall be identical with the Military Demarcation Line provided in the Military Armistice of July 27, 1953, and the areas that each side has exercised jurisdiction over until the present time.5Article 11 of the 1991 North-South Joint Declaration does not necessarily mean that the DPRK has lost the legal right to dispute the NLL. DPRK could plausibly argue, due to the ambiguity of the Article 15 of the AA, that it has been prevented from exercising its full jurisdiction over its own territorial waters. From 1953 to 1973, however, the DPRK failed to take clear action where the NLL was concerned. may not have been from acquiescence to the state of affairs as they were so much as acknowledgment of its weaker position in the aftermath of the Korean War. renewed aggression in 1973 was instigated in the hope of achieving a peace agreement with the U.S.,6 encouraged by the withdrawal from Vietnam.7 objective may also have driven the 1999 and 2002 clashes, with the DPRK applying pressure while simultaneously proposing negotiations with the U.S.8 differing positions of the U.S. and ROK on the NLL render it a useful area that the DPRK can exploit in an attempt to weaken their diplomatic relations.9It has been customary for the ROK and supporters of the NLL to argue that its compliance with the median line principle, commonly used in settling disputed maritime areas, makes it legal. Experts in the law however, have written that the NLL breaches a number of UNCLOS articles. Van Dyke, Valencia and Garmendia, using case studies, demonstrate that the median line principle does not mean the NLL complies with UNCLOS. Most striking is Article 76, which proclaims that states can't use straight baselines to cut offthe territorial seas of other states. …

IntroductionNorth Korean society has been exclusively controlled by the North Korean Workers' Party (NKWP) since 1945. The North has established and runs a centrally planned economy that is unprecedented in any other socialist state. The NKWP has focused on setting up an autarkic socialist system and adheres to a form of development that favors heavy industry. From the beginning of its existence, the North has sought to exploit its available natural resources. Since 80 percent of the land in the North was forest, economic development was highly dependent on the use of forest resources. Consequently, forestry policies were geared toward the use of land, including forest resources, for economic development.Even though the government emphasized the importance of securing natural resources and wood products, it did not actively support the growth and maintenance of forest resources. Ironically, it encouraged the building of slop fields near residential areas to expand farmland, a policy that resulted in the destruction of woodlands. The degradation of forests created disastrous floods and landslides that played a key role in the food and energy crisis of the mid-1990s.The North began to change its forestry policies after 1990. It was faced with an ongoing economic crisis and the collapse of the Eastern European socialist regimes, and the natural disasters in the 1990s severely impeded the North's economic recovery. In response to this situation, it explored various economic recovery measures and finally requested economic assistance from the international community in 1995.1 It also tried to change its forestry policies to rehabilitate despoiled woodlands. For example, the government passed forest legislation in 1992 and established the Department of the Land and Environment Protection in 1996.In 2000, the North started to take more conclusive actions to rehabilitate its forests, seeking the assistance of other nations. Therefore, in this study, we examine the causes and extent of the North's forest degradation and analyze the changes in its forestry policy. The second section deals with forest utilization and degradation in North Korea. The third section analyzes the responses of North Korea to forest degradation since the mid-1990s; it is followed by a conclusion.Forest Utilization and Degradation in North KoreaUnderstanding the Forest and Its Utilization in North KoreaNorth Korea regards nature merely as a means by which to increase the living standards of its people. Thus, its government believes that the forest can be exploited for this purpose, with little regard for natural consequences. Therefore, since coming to power in 1945, the North Korean regime has actively tried to transform the natural landscape for its benefit. In particular, the use and transformation of forests to resolve the problem of scarce natural resources and farmland has been a crucial economic issue.2 The primary goal of North Korea's forestry policy has been to secure a stable supply of forest products, such as timber, in order to construct a socialist society.3 As part of a broader economic development policy, the forestry policy is based on the centrally planned economy.Because of socialist economic management, the forests in North Korea belong to the state, but the right to use the forests is reserved by organizations, enterprises, and groups under state control. Those permitted to use forest resources have an obligation to preserve and exploit them according to the Forest Development Design Body's plan and the characteristics of particular environments. In 1980, in order to maximize the production of forest products, the North devised a policy of allotment by which lands were parceled out to organizations, enterprises, schools, and other groups so as to cultivate and manage forests competitively, despite scarce labor and resources.It is not known how the government decides on the management and exploitation of forests. …

IntroductionA lack of consideration of the founder of North Korea, Kim Il-sung, and his family's perceptional variants has misled the estimation of North Korea's provocative policy and its determination to take risks. It is argued here that North Korea's security dilemma and its obsession with father-to-son successions have been the principal causes of its provocative behavior. The security dilemma1has impelled North Korea to generate, and thus portray to the world, provocative signals; and the everpressing issue of Kim Il-sung and his family's succession has driven them to prioritize their political survival over that of the survival of the North Korean state. When Kim Il-sung and his family engage simultaneously in encounters related to the security dilemma and major issues involving the succession, they provoke. When their political survival is threatened, they take a step back.Threat Perception and North KoreaWhen a leader perceives that his values and interests are endangered, and at the same time he perceives an inability to control events and faces a lack of resources that can be manipulated against this threat, we witness a leader who perceives threat.2 When a leader is uncertain about his international and domestic circumstances, which would limit his choice between alternatives, perceptions matter.3 A leader's choices are not explicable without some reference to his priorities, obsessions, and perceptions of international relations and domestic politics. His priorities, obsessions, and perceptions are significantly influenced by his assumptions, views, and preexisting beliefs.4 This is why each analysis encounters the issue of the objectivity of the leaders' perceptions and conceptualization.5 One of the most important reasons for the North Korean nuclear stalemate was the perceptional gap between Washington and Pyongyang.6A perception of threat would frame the situation in a way that would emphasize possible gains or possible losses. To frame a threat is to highlight some aspects of the threat and make them more salient in such a way as to suggest a particular problem-solving definition. Essentially, frames define the threat, identify the causes of the threat, and recommend policy alternatives. In this process, threat percep-tion frames the situation and choice of alternatives by drawing attention to specific ways in which to respond and at the same time marginalizing more dovish perspectives. In this respect, the leader would ultimately take greater risks than he had intended.7How a situation is framed, intentionally or unintentionally, affects a leader's policy choices. The most fundamental effect of framing is to define the boundary of a leader's perception by placing a certain situation within a certain sphere of meaning.8 In doing so, frames influence the process in which the leader perceives, understands, and remembers a certain incident, thereby affecting and guiding his subsequent judgment and responses.9A state's foreign policy is made not just by cost-benefit calculations but by various domestic as well as international factors that frame decision-makers.10 As defensive realists argue, the diagnosis of the adversary's motivations in addition to its capability is a critical element in assessing a country's foreign policy. A different interpretation of the adversary's motivations leads to different policy prescriptions, even under similar situations. Thus, interpreting North Korea's motivations behind its nuclear program should determine U.S. policy toward the Pyongyang regime.11North Korea's unconventional interpretation of threat is framed by the Juche ideology and pursued in the name of military-first politics. The theme of Juche may be summarized as defiance of fate and assertion as the actor, or subject, as the creator of history.12 Rather than staying passive, the Juche ideology compels people to struggle against a hostile environment in order to turn it into a favorable one:The Juche ideology manifests a new question on the subject and the source of power to govern and make changes in the world. …