Want to understand… #1 North Korea

Hello guys!

The other day I was thinking about creating another serie of articles on my profile. I am a big fan of politics and history, and I think these two subjects may be scary for some of you, and that you may think that it is quite not interesting... But trust me, if you had told me that I was going to a be a big fan of politics a few years ago, I would have laughed at you! I will try to give you the more crucial information on each subject that I will talk about and in the easiest way! I hope you will enjoy it.

Since the end of the Korean War, Korea is divided into two parts. Since this moment, the two countries follow a very different path: South Korea is on the American side, while the North is totally against the US. Since the 90's, we hear more and more about North Korea and this is especially because of its nuclear development. To better understand it, you have to understand first that it is an international and domestic strategy.

First, on the domestic aspect, you have to know that the North Korea's nuclear ambition has cost and will continue to cost a lot for North Korea. The population has suffered a few starvations episodes and is known to live sometimes in poor living conditions, but there does not seem to have a lot of rebellions. To keep the regime safe, the Kim's family communist regime had established a great mythology all around every sibling, for example they say that Kim Il-sung, the grandfather of Kim Jong-un, the actual leader of North Korea, was born on a hill, which is now a sacred place for all the DPRK people. They developed an amazing cult of personality around the Kim family. National holidays are based on important dates of the family (births,...). Their portraits are diffused all around the country, songs about them are taught since the first years of school... It may seem to us totally incomprehensible that the North Korean population just accepts it and says nothing, but the regime has also found a solution to that: keep the state totally closed on the outside. A good way to see all the propaganda developed by North Korea is with the Netflix documentary: "The Propaganda Game".

In order to keep the regime closed, they follow what is called "the juche ideology": the country must stay closed to others' influence and its economy must remain self-reliable. If the regime opens itself, it will lead to the end of Kim's regime: a light similarity can be made with Gorbachev and his transparency policy, which lead to the end of the USSR.

On the international side, North Korea also see nuclear weapons as an economic asset to save its economy, but in the wrong way: there are a lot of suspicions about the fact that it helped other countries to develop the nuclear states, and maybe even some countries with terrorist organizations. It also wants to become a recognized nuclear state, in order to have more power on the international stage. However, instead it is not a nuclear power, North Korea had still gained some concessions from the Western powers. Moreover, North Korea assures its security with nuclear deterrence: a foreign nuclear aggression is quite unlikely because it could lead to a complete disaster.

I think the most interesting argument for explaining the North Korean nuclear ambition is the fact that it surely develops its nuclear power and continues to show an aggressive behaviour towards other countries is probably because of it wants to keep the international community interested. Without that, North Korea would just remain another state looking for international aid and security incentives.