북한 두 국가 선언의 전략적 의도와 균형화 조치: 김정은의 ‘위협인식’을 중심으로 = The strategic intent and response of North Korea’s two state declarations: Focusing on Kim Jong-un’s ‘perception against threat’

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

At the Ninth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) on December 26-30, 2023, North Korea laid out the direction of its recently changed policy toward South Korea and the United States. At the 9th Plenum, Kim Jong-un stated that the relationship between North and South Korea “is no longer a relationship of kinship and homogeneity, but has been completely fixed as a relationship of two hostile countries, two belligerents at war”.
Kim Jong-un’s declaration of two states and abandonment of the unification theory was born out of a “threat perception” due to the ongoing sanctions and economic problems caused by COVID-19 and the acceleration of military cooperation between South Korea, the United States, and Japan under the US-China “decoupling” since 2017. Stephen M. Walt emphasizes the “threat balance” dimension, finding “threats” as the most fundamental motivation for states to seek a balance of power for their own security.
In response to this threat, Kim Jong-un has pursued three balancing policies. The first is the reversal and affirmation of the North-South adversarial relationship. At the Ninth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, Kim Jong-un declared that the two Koreas were no longer related to each other as kin or homogeneous, but as two hostile nations, and vowed to completely eliminate the concepts of reunification, reconciliation, and kinship, along with the removal of all symbols related to inter-Korean exchanges.
The second is the increasing pressure to use a nuclear first strike against South Korea. North Korea has revised its nuclear doctrine for the use of nuclear preemption, completed the practical deployment of tactical nuclear-based ballistic missiles aimed at the South, and continued to increase the intensity of its nuclear missile test launches in order to upgrade them.
The third is an attempt to restore the DPRK-China-Russia alliance through DPRK-Russia military cooperation. The more important strategic benefit that North Korea will gain from the confidence of the DPRK-Russia military cooperation is to draw China into the military cooperation. By pushing for the restoration of the triangular cooperation, North Korea intends to restore North Korea’s strategic status through equidistance diplomacy between China and Russia.