North Korean Economy Watch

Donga
12/18/2006

North Korean Military: New Regime?  

If that happens, the report forecasts that the military is highly likely to control the government and independent units, such as the escort command, and the security command and the operation command will attempt to take control of the government by joining forces or individually.

Yesterday, Dong-A Ilbo obtained a report titled “North Korea’s Crisis Management System and Our Countermeasures” released by the information committee of the National Assembly. The report predicts that “we cannot rule out an abrupt collapse of the Kim Jong Il regime. But, given the neighboring countries do not have firm grounds for intervention, the fall of North Korea will happen gradually.” It was submitted to the committee on December 13 by three researchers of Peace Foundation, Cho Seong-ryeol, Kim Hak-rin and Kang dong-ho.

Kim Jong Il in Trouble in North Korean Emergency-

The report argues that a national crisis is likely to be caused when Kim Jong Il, the chief of the North’s Workers’ Party, the government and the military, is in trouble.

If that happens, the report forecasts that the military is highly likely to control the government and independent units, such as the escort command, and the security command and the operation command, will attempt to take control of the government by joining forces or individually.

In particular, it also expects Oh Geuk Ryeol, the 75-year-old operational director of the Workers’ Party who is considered to be the most powerful among Kim Jong Il’s cross associates, to act before others by utilizing his independent commanding authority and his elite unit equipped with advanced weapons.

The report says the first thing the North Korean military should do, after taking control, is to declare a national emergency in the name of the central military committee of the Workers’ Party, which is entitled to command and control all military power in the country according to Article 27 of the party rules. But the report also predicts that the national defense committee will be at the center of administration of power and that the new regime will maintain a group leader system temporarily.

Who Will Be the Acting Commander in Chief?-

According to the report, if the North engages in war with the outside world, the country is likely to shift an emergency control system with the commander in chief in its center, as it did during the Korean War.

Cho Myeong Rok, the 78-year-old director of the General Political Department of the Korean People’s Army, is highly likely to be appointed as a commander in chief by hierarchy. But, considering age and health, Kim Yeong Chun, the 70-year-old Chief of the General Staff of the Army responsible for military operation of the one million-strong forces, is the shoo-in, according to the report.

Establishment of the Succession System-

It has been analyzed that the establishment of a succession system is more urgent for Kim Jong Il than the overcoming of the economic crisis through reform and market opening or the formation of diplomatic ties with the U.S., since Kim is well aware that an emergency in the absence of the succession system will lead to a civil war.

For this reason, it says, chances are that Pyongyang will formalize the succession system internally in the first half of 2007, when internal cohesion following its nuclear test and the supportive atmosphere for the third-time succession of military authority to protect the vested interest of the “Military First politics” still remain.

The report also connects the gradual stabilization of the succession system and the resolution of the North’s nuclear problem. It estimates that Kim will demand approval of the succession system and massive economic assistance in return for denouncement of nuclear weapons, and that the Pyongyang-Washington ties will be normalized if Washington accepts the demand.

Korea Herald
12/18/2006

N.K. general to lead if Kim loses power

A top military commander is expected to take the reins in North Korea in the event its leader Kim Jong-il loses power during an emergency, a South Korean parliamentary report said yesterday.

The report on a possible North Korean crisis pinpointed General Oh Geuk-ryul, chief of central combat operations of the Workers’ Party, as the strongest candidate to take contingency leadership of the communist country.

The report was written by the Peace Foundation, a private think tank on security affairs commissioned by the National Assembly Intelligence Committee.

The report said if Kim loses control, it will trigger fierce power struggles among leaders of different military groups such as Kim’s security guard, the Army headquarters, the intelligence command and the combat operations department.

None of them are in position to take control of the entire military. Kim is known to have controlled all military forces through a system of checks and balances among the several independent military groups. Each separate group is directed by Kim, with no influence on one another.

Among the powerful candidates, Oh, 74, is expected to take the lead in mobilizing his well-trained soldiers equipped with the North’s most modern weapons systems, the report said.

In the event the North Korean crisis triggers intervention from outside forces, the new leadership could fall under Kim Young-chun, deputy marshal of the Korean Peoples’ Army, the report expected.

Kim, 69, is likely to lead the North’s military in fighting against any foreign interventionist forces although Cho Myoung-rok, another deputy marshal of the KPA, is higher in rank, it said. Cho, 77, was cited as weaker than Kim due to his age and suspect health.

The report also said Pyongyang’s crisis may lead to the development of a crisis management system instead of the collapse of the North Korean regime.

The new authority is expected to exercise a military-led collective leadership after invoking martial law throughout the country, it said.

With regard to the possibility of North Korean military aggression, a full-scale invasion of South Korea is unlikely to occur at the time of such a crisis although the North could trigger local conflicts in frontline areas, the report said.

The report advised that South Korea needs to prepare to deal with the North’s new leadership and to enhance military preparedness for any possible clashes.

“Military First” Politics to a Point
Ken E. Gause
Strategic Studies Institute
9/1/2006

Download PDF here:  Civil-Military.pdf

Summary
Unlike the study of other authoritarian regimes, first the Soviet Union and more recently China, which have given rise to a cottage industry of analysis on all aspects of things military, the same cannot be said of the Korean People’s Army (KPA), the armed forces of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). In the small world of Pyongyang watchers, articles and books devoted to the KPA are few and in most cases deal with the armed forces themselves (order of battle) rather than the high command that oversees the machinery.

This monograph examines the role of the KPA within the power structure of North Korea. The author describes the landscape of military and security institutions that ensure the regime’s security and the perpetuation of the Kim dynasty. He also highlights the influential power brokers, both civilian and military, and describes how they fit into the leadership structure. Finally, he considers the role of the KPA in regime politics, especially as it relates to the upcoming succession and economic reform.

An understanding of the North Korean leadership does not mean only recognizing the personalities who occupy the top political positions within the regime. In his landmark book, Shield of the Great Leader, Joseph Bermudez noted that over its 50-year history, the DPRK has developed into one of the most militarized countries in the world, with the KPA existing alongside the Korean Worker’s Party (KWP) as the two cornerstones of the regime. During this time, the role of the high command and its ties to the leadership and decisionmaking have changed.

The KPA was founded on February 8, 1948, approximately 7 months before the founding of the DPRK. As Kim Il Sung struggled to consolidate his power over the regime, his old comrades-in-arms, with whom he had fought against the Japanese, helped him purge the factional groupings and their leaders. After he had secured his power, Kim Il Sung relied on the KWP to rule the country. The high command played its role within the decisionmaking bodies of the state, but it paid its loyalty to the party and the Great Leader.

When Kim Jong Il succeeded his father as the supreme leader in 1994, he faced a regime divided among numerous factions, many of which did not owe allegiance to him. As a consequence, he embarked on a campaign of reshuffling briefs, purging the more dangerous elements of the regime, and making way for a new generation of leaders who would coexist and then slowly replace their elders. At the same time, he began to move more authority from the KWP and to place it within the purview of the military. This transformation of authority culminated in 1998 at the 10th Supreme People’s Assembly, when the National Defense Commission eclipsed the Politburo as the supreme national decisionmaking body. In the years since, the term “military-first politics” (son’gun chongch’i) has been used to signify the privileged status the KPA holds throughout North Korean society and to stress that the regime’s sovereignty rests upon the military’s shoulders.

This monograph tracks the rise of the military inside the North Korean leadership and presents the backgrounds of key figures within the high command and the formal and informal connections that bind this institution to Kim Jong Il. As the first generation has passed from the scene, Kim has consolidated his grip on the military slowly by promoting loyalists to key positions throughout the apparatus. He has promoted more than 1,200 general-grade officers on 15 occasions prior to April 2006. This has not only secured Kim’s power, many have argued it has enhanced the military’s influence over him, especially when compared with its influence over his father.

The question facing many North Korea watchers is the extent to which the military figures into decisionmaking. This report argues that, while the military has grown in stature and influence over the last decade, it remains one of many players within the North Korean policymaking process. The lines of authority and information within the regime are complex, consisting of formal and informal channels. The military has numerous avenues into the Kim apparatus, and on many issues have what amounts to a veto authority. This apparently was made clear recently by North Korea’s decision to cancel the test run for train services between North and South. But this does not mean that the military is the primary decisionmaker; that role still belongs to Kim Jong Il, even though he must weigh seriously military thinking on issues that reach far beyond the national security realm.

This monograph also argues that the KPA is not a monolith, but is made up of a range of views, some more hard line than others. Some senior figures within the high command are rumored to have pushed for reforms both internally and in terms of foreign policy, while many younger field commanders are believed to hold some of the hardest of the hard line views. But one area where there seems to be wide agreement throughout the military leadership is the need to fund the armed forces adequately because it is on their back that the nation’s security depends.

In the next few years, the North Korean leadership will face the implications of the “military-first policy” in very stark terms. If Kim Jong Il is to begin to bring the civilian economy out of the dark ages, the military will have to share some of the burden. But whether the high command will be willing to trade some of its “weapons for ploughshares” is not certain, given the current tensions on the peninsula. In the mix of what is already a contentious argument over guns versus butter is an unfolding succession struggle as Kim seeks to name his heir apparent. As in any totalitarian regime, the succession issue is huge and impacts decisionmaking across the board.

There is a note of caution when reading this report. The subject matter deals with information that is unfolding and will continue to shift in the coming months and years. The author has made every effort to validate through numerous sources the information contained on the various personalities, but in some cases it is still opaque. The reason for this is simple. Information on North Korean leadership issues is a closely held secret inside the Hermit Kingdom. The actions and activity of individual leaders are more often rumor than subject to check and verification.

Nautilus Institute
Alexander V. Vorontsov
6/8/2006

The “Songun Chongch’i” or military-first politics mantra adopted by North Korean leader Kim Jong-il as a guideline for domestic governance and foreign policy has elicited mostly negative responses from Korea-watchers. Many view songun as the final phase in the deterioration of North Korea and a serious threat to neighboring states saying that an impoverished country of 24 million inhabitants supporting a military of more than 1 million soldiers is incapable of modernization and economic reform. They argue that greater military participation in politics creates a dual-pronged threat: the army may appropriate a greater share of already-dwindling state funds to increase its readiness and effectiveness; and the generals, supposedly the most militant sector of the policy-making structure, will have a louder voice in foreign policy formulation, which could lead to hostile rhetoric towards South Korea.

A less alarmist interpretation of military-first politics is that Kim Jong-il is trying to maintain the existing order, to strengthen his regime based on personal authority, and consolidate control of military forces with the goal of preventing an overthrow of the state.

So, is military authority a curse or a blessing? The lessons from history are ambiguous, as states ruled by the military have experienced both prosperity and hardship. But some argue that South Korea represents a relatively positive example in which it has experienced a national revival because of a period of military rule.

In 1961, Park Chung-hee, a colonel in the ROK army, seized authority South Korea in a bloodless coup and established a rigid dictatorship with his military comrades. Though politics became more repressive, the national economy grew exponentially and General Park is remembered by many as the “father of the South Korean economic miracle.” Few dispute that this economic growth planted the seeds for the ensuing process of democratization. So it is hardly accidental that, in recent years, Kim Jong-il has started to speak favorably of General Park and his role in the modernization of the Republic of Korea.

The implementation of songun in the mid-1990s increased the role of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) in daily life. The army began to participate even more in social and economic decision-making, from large-scale infrastructure development to providing its own food. While military personnel are required to serve for ten years, they spend most of their service participating in different areas of the country’s socio-economic life. Thus, the army is now not as heavy economic burden, and is serves as an important resource and catalyst for developing the national economy.

The movement to the military-first policy has accompanied a gradual transformation of North Korea’s planned economy to the direction of a mixed economy. The result may eventually be a network of large, less state-controlled corporations that share close ties with government agencies, similar to the “chaebol” that Park Chung-hee created in South Korea. Because of this, the North Korean military is now involved in different spheres of economic activity, including foreign economic ties and trade operations, and will likely play a key role in this ongoing process of privatization.

With songun also come changes in ideology. This change and its underlying goal of building a powerful and prosperous state - “kangsong taeguk,” are justified by flexible and creative interpretations of the bedrock ideal of self-reliance - “juche,” a nationalist ideology developed by revolutionary leader Kim Il-sung. The songun concept replaces the proletariat and the vanguard Communist Party with the army as the driving force in society. This innovation is significant because the army is typically a less ideological and more pragmatic institution than the Party.

The army’s role in society is not the only example of Kim Jong-il’s liberation from orthodox ideologies. Since the early 1990s, North Korea has shifted its emphasis from socialist ideals to historical and spiritual values. This is reflected in the use of Confucian norms in public policy and everyday life, and legitimizing the state through reference ancient Korean kingdoms. Again, the parallels with Park Chung-hee are very strong. Kim Jong-il has also sought to reduce the prevalence of the personality cult. From early 2004, for example, there could be only one portrait of Kim Il-sung in public places. Similarly, Kim Jong-il is to be described only by his official positions, rather than the use of laudatory epithets such as “Dear Leader.”

Songun should not be automatically dismissed as an ideological dead-end. As the experience of South Korea under Park Chung-hee demonstrates, military rule can have positive effects on society under certain conditions.