This study aims to explore the formation and execution of the Economy-Defense Parallel Policy by Kim Il Sung in the 1960s and the Military-First Economy Policy by Kim Jong-il in the 2000s. It also aims to establish a comparison between two policies an...
This study aims to explore the formation and execution of the Economy-Defense Parallel Policy by Kim Il Sung in the 1960s and the Military-First Economy Policy by Kim Jong-il in the 2000s. It also aims to establish a comparison between two policies and analyze the similarities and differences between them.
First of all, the two policies share similarities in that they both sought to expand military power by allocating resources including finance preferentially to the defense industry. The point that the two policies strategically mobilized internal resources and made crucial impact in terms of economy, national security, and domestic politics suggests that these policies should not be seen merely as military or security strategies. Furthermore, both the Economy-Defense Parallel Policy and the Military-First Economy Policy have great relevance to the development of nuclear weapon. Kim Il Sung had built the foundation of nuclear weapon for more than 30 years, and Kim Jong-il achieved its actual development. Now Kim Jong-un maintains his family tradition with the nuclear power-economy parallel policy.
The most striking difference between the two policies is their nature. Kim Il Sung's Economy-Defense Parallel Policy assumed the characteristics of war preparation that focused on the development of munitions industry in response to external security threats. On the other hand, the Military-First Economy Policy by Kim Jong-il invested primarily in the defense industry despite limited resources in order to preserve the regime in the midst of regime crises and economic crises.
Such difference in the nature of the two policies derives from how each policy first came to life. The essence of Kim Il Sung's Economy-Defense Parallel Policy was not about giving equivalent weight to economy and defense; rather, the policy intended to construct self-defense power by converting investment for economy into military sector. The security threats from the United States and South Korea in the early 1960s and the security tension following the Vietnam War and the Cuban missile crisis were the main reasons that North Korea, an underdeveloped country, decided to prioritize its construction of national defense while delaying economic development. North Korea's seeking self-defense without external support can also be interpreted as an effort to break free from the Soviet and Chinese intervention. In addition, the DPRK hoped for a swift expansion of military power to realize the communization of South Korea, an urgent task of constructing socialism. Kim Il Sung emphasized the possibility of war by the US Imperialists in his New Year's address or speeches to the country and pressed the supply of resources for war preparation.
The implementation of Kim Il Sung's Economy-Defense Parallel Policy was possible because post-war Heavy Industry-First Policy was producing results and Self-reliance economic policy had been promoted since late 1950s. The fact that mobilization system including Chollima Movement for constructing socialism had been established and that the ‘August Incident,’ an event that purged Soviet Faction and Yanan Faction in the Korea Labors Party who favored the development of light industry, weakened the opposing voices towards Heavy Industry-First Policy enabled an abrupt change in policy.
In contrast to the Economy-Defense Parallel Policy, which was a war preparation strategy based on economic performance, Kim Jong-il's military-first economy policy was a survival strategy against regime crisis. The demise of Socialist empire including the Soviet Union, failure to reach the goal of an economic plan, and shortage of food led to the collapse of the foundation of social control, leaving Kim Jong-il's regime in the face of downfall. In early days, Kim's regime was busy trying to overcome the siege mentality and diplomatic isolation. Kim Jong-il came to increase investment in light industry and agriculture that he had previously neglected, decentralized trade, and connived black market.
After weathering its worst crisis, the DPRK asserted Practical Socialism (Shilli socialism) and thus secured a cause to nationalize the profit generated from marketization. Subsequently, North Korea announced the July Economic Reform that demanded the reinforcement of self-financing system, a drastic cut in welfare expense for its people, and the expansion of corporate autonomy. Based on the expansion of finance and economic recovery achieved through the reform, Kim Jong-il implemented Defense industry-first policy, Kim Jong-il emphasized the threats of Imperialists to the people in the process of implementation, but most were ideological, cultural, and indirect threats and far from military and direct ones. Similar to the Economy-Defense Parallel Policy, Defense industry-first policy showed a tendency of increasing investment in national defense when it was economically and financially affordable. At the same time, North Korea began to organize its regime for Military-First Politics with the People's army at its core.
The processes of development of the two policies were in other words the processes of resource mobilization. Resource referred to any of the finance, supplies, and manpower that could be mobilized. Kim Il Sung once spent more than 30% of the national budget in national defense in order to speed up the development of munitions industry, but presumably the numbers are understated considering the undisclosed part of historical record. It was a time when the development of munitions industry was possible merely by changing the way of financial distribution, maybe to an excessive degree. According to domestic and foreign studies, although not consistent, excessive military expenses in socialist states or developing countries have a negative influence on economy. Even Kim Il Sung admitted that raising the standard of living was burdensome as the portion of national budget for economy was passed on to military expenditures. Although North Korea's defense industry made it possible to produce weapons domestically and such feat led to the exportation of weapons, it is considered a major factor that brought about economic stagnation by failing to contribute sufficiently to domestic economy.
The international strategy, accommodation strategy and restructuring strategy are to be used for mobilization. The first strategy Kim Il Sung implemented was accommodation strategy including urging frugality and high productivity as he launched the Economy-Defense Parallel Policy when he could not expect the free aid from USSR. So he moved the budget for economy to defense sector which was a restructuring strategy. After that even when USSR restarted the aid to DPRK, Kim Il Sung did not stop the mobilization his own country's resources into war preparation. In this result, the wide expanding of the military economy revoked the turmoil in the national economy by making the economy three folded: the party economy, military economy and people's economy.
Prior to the development of defense industry, Kim Jong-il was forced to try recovering the socialist economic system that had been being paralyzed and reconstructing financial condition. In particular, for the recovery of finance, Kim cut spending by abolishing food rationing system, imposed tax on the market through the July Economic Reform, executed currency reform, and promoted hard currency earnings by the military. By making a change in the system itself, Kim Jong-il introduced the elements of market economy and relied on the market when changing the way of financial distribution was no longer sufficient to support defense construction as financial shortage worsened. Even in time of economic crisis, Kim Jong-il continued to import weapons from overseas. Kim owned 1.1 million troops, the fourth most in the world in those days, who were deployed to construction sites, business, and farming to make a breakthrough for economic recovery. The troops were deemed an example of combat mentality. Military-First Politics can be interpreted as an ‘Ideology-Economy Parallel Policy’ with emphasis on the military.
Utilizing the Production Possibility Frontier (PPF), widely applied in Economics, this study attempted a dynamic explanation with a graph that the increased military expenses by North Korea may lead to the shortage phenomenon of people's economy. Moreover, another dynamic analysis was performed using Indifference Curve and Budget Constraint to examine that inefficiency in the ruling system may be displayed as side effects of the expansion of military expenses and promotion to high positions by military regime. Due to lack of relevant statistics and data, the explanation provided by this study is not comprehensive enough, but it is useful in that the study may help understand relevant phenomena.