Does North Korea Have a National Security Strategy?

Over the years, Kim Jong Il has pursued four inter-related goals that together might be considered as an implicit national security strategy:

1. reviving the economy; 
2. buttressing domestic support at a time of leadership transition; 
3. widening North Korea's "diplomatic space" through 360-degree diplomacy; and
4. shoring up the country´s aging military.  

These goals are tightly linked but also involve significant trade-offs that may offer greater possibilities than ususally supposed for solving the issue of its nuclear weapons program.

Dr. John Merrill is the head of the Northeast Asia Division of U.S. State Department´s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and Adjunct Professor in the School of International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University.  He is the author of Korea: The Peninsular Origins of the War, 1945-50 and The Cheju-do Rebellion as well as numerous journal articles.