Songun

North Korean militarist policy

Songun is the "military first" policy of North Korea, prioritizing the Korean People's Army in the affairs of state and allocation of resources. "Military first" as a principle guides political and economic life in North Korea, with "military first politics" dominating the political system; "a line of military first economic construction" acting as an economic system; and "military first ideology" serving as the guiding ideology. Songun elevates the Korean People's Army within North Korea as an organization and as a state function, granting it the primary position in the North Korean government and society. It guides domestic policy and international interactions. It is the framework for the government, designating the military as the "supreme repository of power". The government grants the Korean People's Army the highest economic and resource allocation priority and positions it as the model for society to emulate. Songun represents the ideological concept behind a shift in policies since 1994 which emphasize the people's military over all other aspects of state and society.

The roots of Songun can be traced back to Kim Il Sung's guerilla activities against the Japanese during the 1930s. During this time, Kim Il Sung came to believe that a nation's independence, sovereignty, and prosperity were dependent on the existence of an organized and well armed fighting force. The "four military lines" (hangul=사대군사노선) policy implemented by Kim Il Sung in 1962 was a precursor to Songun. The policy aimed to arm the entire population, fortify the state, educate every soldier to become a party cadre, and modernize the People's Army. Songun did not appear as an official government policy until after Kim Il sung's death in 1994. In the wake of his first visit to a military unit in 1995, Kim Jong Il, the son of Kim Il Sung, introduced Songun as "a revolutionary idea of attaching great importance to the army" and "a politics emphasizing the perfect unity and the single hearted unity of the party, army and the people, and the role of the army as the vanguards". This was a shift from the government's previous guiding policy, Kim Il Sung's Juche. According to the North Korean government, Kim Jong Il's inspiration for Songun came from a visit with his father to the Seoul 105th Guards Armored Division headquarters in Pyongyang on 25 August 1960. 25 August is now a national holiday, the Day of Songun. A 1997 editorial published in Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the Workers' Party of Korea, stated, "Never before have the status and role of the People's Army been so extraordinarily elevated as today when it is being led energetically by the Respected and Beloved Comrade Supreme Commander". By this point, the Korean People's Army had also become "synonymous with the people, the state, and the party". In 1998, Songun began appearing in conjunction with other terms, including "military first revolutionary idea", "military first revolutionary leadership" and "military first politics", expanding the concept of Songun into even more aspects of North Korean governance. In January 2003, the New Year's editorial added military first ideology (Songun sasang) to the pantheon of military first concepts. In December 2003, the "Essential Attributes of Military First Politics" was published as a new vision of the driving force of the revolution in the quasi communist North Korea. It assigned the main force of the revolution to the Korean People's Army. North Korea also credits Songun with safeguarding the peace on the peninsula and claims that it is the only thing preventing the United States from attacking North Korea. Songun has become intrinsic to North Korea's domestic politics, foreign policy and decision making, making a place alongside Juche as a guiding principle of the state. According to author Suki Kim's memoir of her time teaching at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, there are twelve "Wonders of Songun": The sunrise at Mount Paektu (the alleged birthplace of Kim Jong Il); the winter pine trees at the Dabaksol guard post (where Kim Jong Il supposedly launched the Songun policy); the Cheollyeong azaleas (a "frontline" hill where Kim Jong Il visited often); the evening view of Jangji Mountain near the Changja River (a refuge for a young Kim Jong Il during the Korean War); the sound of the Ullim Waterfall in the mountains above Munchon, Kangwon Province (as it is the sound of a "powerful and prosperous nation"); the horizon at Handurebol (the Handure Plain in Taechon County) for this was the location of Kim Jong Il's land reform in 1998 after the famine; Taehongdan County's large fields of potato flowers (Kim Il Sung is said to have fought the Japanese here and Kim Jong Il turned it into the country's largest potato farm); the area around the mountain village of Beoman ri in Sohung County, North Hwanghae Province (Kim Jong Il rebuilt the village after the famine and is claimed as the "pride of a communist country"); the bean (or nut) farming program Kim Jong Un instituted to provide food for the military; the large rice farm in Migok, Sariwon; the Taedonggang fruit farm in Pyongyang; and the Ryongjung fish farm in South Hwanghae Province. A thirteenth "wonder" is reported to have been created in 2016. In this sense, Songun is perceived as an aggressive, threatening move to increase the strength of the North Korean military at the expense of other parts of society. The second strand focuses on internal North Korean politics as the cause for the move to military first politics. When Kim Il Sung died, he left leadership of North Korea to his son, Kim Jong Il. At the time of his father's death, the most important position held by Kim Jong Il in the North Korean government was military, specifically second in command of the military. Additionally, in order to keep control of the government Kim Jong Il would need to secure his support base within the Korean People's Army. The ascendency of the Korean People's Army concerns South Korea and ties into the debate over the Sunshine Policy, its most recent vision of Korean reunification. Songun politics have also thrived on the ongoing nuclear crisis. For the United States, given that its primary concern is the denuclearisation of the peninsula, the concept of military first politics and ideology is a troubling one. Songun also seems to fit very well with the possession of nuclear weapons and can be seen as a way of making such weapons central to the government's guiding ideology of self governance. It has been said that the longer military first ideology guides the North Korean government, the less likely it will be that the United States will be able to convince North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons programme. North Korea could perceive attempts at denuclearisation and normalisation of affairs with the United States as a threat to the primacy of the military within North Korea and thus a threat to Songun ideology, a fear which puts into doubt the idea that North Korea may become willing to give up its nuclear weapons programme. Sergey Kurbanov, head of the Institute of Korean Studies of the University of Saint Petersburg, described in his Daily NK interview how the members of the nouveau riche in North Korea support the military first politics in order to secure their wealth.