Page 74 - Trilateral Korea Japan U.S. Cooperation

What do those seemingly contradictory messages suggest?
My answer is that North Korea is becoming strategically
defensive and tactically offensive. It seems that Kim Jong-Un
is attempting to enhance the chance of his regime’s survival
by consolidating the division of the Korean Peninsula.
His country is lagging behind South Korea in all aspects
of competition except for nuclear and long-range missile
capabilities. In fact, North Korea has long been strategically
defensive and tactically offensive. The only difference before
and after Kim’s January speech is that North Korea’s anti-
unification or division-consolidation policy has now become
official.

North Korea used to discuss the “dire threat” posed by the
United States while belittling South Korea. Today, the
country’s top leader officially acknowledged that the Republic
of Korea, the “most hostile state” in the nearest neighborhood,
has created in the nearest neighborhood a “special
environment.” Kim regards South Korea as “despicable,
arrogant, and rude.” If a war broke out, his country would
defend its sovereignty, the security of its people, and its “right
to existence.” North Korea’s new policy is based on “recognizing
the two states coexisting on the Korean Peninsula.”

South Korea has a population twice as large as that of North
Korea. South Korea’s gross domestic product is 60 times as
large as North Korea’s. South Korea spends about 10 times
as much as North Korea on defense. Pyongyang is concerned
about the negative political consequences of the infiltration
of South Korean culture––K-pop and K-dramas––into the
minds of North Korean people. North Korea enacted the

Chapter Four : Growing Strategic Linkages and North Korea’s Anti-Unification Policy 73