How North Korea REALLY Sees the World (Deep Dive)

North Korea is often painted as a cartoon villain, a starving nation run by a madman sealed off from the modern world, and certainly such an interpretation of the nation is nothing if not interesting. But what if it's perhaps a bit too simplistic?

We think it is, because for all the absurd pageantry in the missile parade, there is, as we see it, logic at work here.

A worldview that once understood makes the country's actions far more considered than they initially appear. To Pyongyang, every hardship is proof of purity. Every test of endurance and moral victory.

Survival itself becomes ideology. It's a nation that has built an entire philosophy around the notion that self-reliance isn't just practical, but sacred. That to depend on anyone else is to risk annihilation.

And from that belief flows everything. The bomb. The famine.

The isolation. The defiance. The outside world, it looks like madness.

To them, it's moral clarity. Because in their telling, it isn't a dictatorship clinging to power. It is a people fighting to remain unbroken and resolute in a world stacked against them.

Oh, and just a quick note here, there's not going to be any overt... Oh, North Korea's bad in today's episode. It's been done a thousand times already.

We all know it's the case, and it won't bring anything new to the table. Instead, what we're going to do is try something a little bit different. We're going to put ourselves in the shoes of a true believer of the regime, and try and wrap our heads around how they see the world and their place in it.

The Birth of an Idea Okay, let's start at the beginning. The 1930s, to be precise. It was a time when Korea was not a country, but a colony of Imperial Japan, and had been so since 1910, with external meddling in their affairs going back even further still.

And in that career, students were taught loyalty to the emperor back in Tokyo, the Japanese language was imposed by mandate, the press was heavily censored, the boons of industry went not to the natives, but to the occupiers, and even the faintest ember of resistance was stubbed out by the Kempei Tai, Japan's fearsome military police.

It was into this world that Kim Il-sung, North Korea's first supreme leader, was born into a modest family near Pyongyang in 1912. His father, Kim Hyeong-jik, was a schoolteacher and nationalist who soon fled across the border into Manchuria to escape Japanese repression, taking his family with him in 1925.

There, among a community of Korean exiles and revolutionaries scattered across northern China, the young Kim grew up amid poverty, displacement, and politics, soaking in the rhetoric of anti-imperialist struggle that would shape him for life.

By the time he reached his late teens, the idealistic boy had already turned guerrilla, joining local communist cells adopting his now-famous revolutionary alias Kim Song-joo, and he began the long, violent apprenticeship that would one day make him master of a state.

Or as the North Koreans themselves put it in the snappily named Origination and Historical Significance of the Juche Idea, the Juche Idea was born of the fierce anti-Japanese Chinese struggle, and developed as a guiding ideology of the Korean Revolution.

Now, let's apply the brakes just a little bit here, because we know what you're thinking. The Juche, what? What the f*** is that all about?

Well, pay attention, because this is going to be just a tiny bit important for the whole rest of today's episode. The Juche idea is North Korea's core guiding philosophy as a nation, and thus, the lens through which everything else that they do has to be understood. And first, the abstract theory dump.

You're welcome. In On the Juche Idea, Kim No. 1's son, Kim Jong-il, states that the Juche idea is based on the philosophical principle that man is the master of everything and decides everything. He then defines man in this context as, quoting again, a social being with independence, creativity, and consciousness.

And from that draws a man-centered outlook, quoting again, that the world is dominated and reshaped by man is a new viewpoint on the world in relation to man. And since your eyes are definitely glazing over watching that, as mine did when I read it, let's break it down into some more normal language for you and me.

In simplified form, he presents Juche as a shift from asking where the world comes from to asking who changes it, and answers the organized collective, i.e. proletarian workers acting independently, creatively, and consciously.

So if that bit of philosophical jiu-jitsu wasn't enough, Kim also lays out the practical rulebook that flows from this. He writes that the leader, i.e. his dad, quote, laid down the principles of Juche in ideology, independence in politics, self-sufficiency in the economy, and self-reliance in defense.

And then explains the first step plainly, quoting again, to establish Juche in ideology means having the consciousness that one is the master of the revolution and construction, thinking and doing everything, centering on the revolution in one's own country.

From there, he insists that, quoting again, the main stress should be placed on ideology, and makes anti-flunkeyism, i.e. not bending to the knee to foreign powers, explicit. Quoting again, if Juche is to be established in ideology, civility to big powers and all other outdated ideas should be opposed.

Flunkeyism is an attitude peculiar to slaves, serving, and worshipping big powers.

Finally, he states the security plank without euphemism. Self-reliance in defense is a fundamental principle of an independent sovereign state. Now, if all of that also went over your head, don't worry about it, because say what you like about communism as an ideology, producing succinct and punchy writers was not its strong point.

I mean, Jesus Christ, have you ever seen Das Kapital? It's big enough to kill a marsupial. So, here's what all of that actually means.

Basically, it's North Korea's homegrown band of communism, rebuilt around the idea that the nation itself, not the global proletariat, not the party elite, not Moscow or Beijing, is the center of the world. It keeps the socialist promise of collective ownership, but swaps out class struggle for national cooperation. Thank you. or struggle.

In practice, that means that Korea should think with its own head, stand on its own feet, and fight with its own hands. To the outside world, it's isolation. To North Korea, it's independence.

Under Juche II, the leader also represents the will of the people. The party organizes it, and the people carry it out. Accordingly, all have a role, all have responsibility, and everything from building a new village to testing an ICBM is framed as proof that the nation can survive entirely by its own strength.

And according to the North Koreans, Kim Il-sung began bashing these ideas out during his time spent as a guerrilla in exile, with it properly being declared an idea in June 1930 in Kalun, Manchuria, when he laid the basics out to a crowd of apparently enthralled members of the Young Communist League and the Anti-Imperialist Youth League.

I guess there wasn't a lot else going on in 1930s Manchuria.

This meeting is a big deal in North Korean myth, too, as the origination and historical significance of the Juche Idea makes rather apparent when it says that, quote, the creation of the Juche Idea was an epoch-making event which brought about a historic turn in the development of revolutionary movement in Korea and opened up a new era in the history of

Human thought, an era of independence in which the masses of the people have emerged as masters of the world and of their own destiny, end quote.

Now, by the time that Kim Il-sung returned to Korea after World War II and was installed as leader of the Northern Zone of Occupation by the Soviets and eventually the Democratic People's Republic of Korea proper, the slogans had begun hardening into doctrine and then something would happen that would quick dry the process.

Something that served as quite the handy reminder that actually, yes, just as Kim Il-sung had been pointing out, they were ultimately on their own. And that, of course, was the Korean War.

And just why did that serve as such a stark reinforcement of those nascent ideas? Well, a couple of reasons. First, that conflict was absolutely devastating to the North.

We're talking the destruction of 75% of Pyongyang, 80% of Hamhung, 85% of Hongnam, and 95% of Sarawon, with the US and its allies having dropped 635,000 tons of bombs just on North Korea more than they dropped on the entire Pacific theater of World War II.

As for deaths, common Western estimates range from 1.5 to 2 million, which would equate to 12 and 15% of the entire population, respectively. And the second reason, as they say in man's destiny and juje idea, the whole conflict was framed as a civilizational-level struggle for the North.

The three-year Korean War that broke out in 1950 was a fierce war decisive of the Korean people's destiny, whether they would become colonial slaves again or remain an independent people. As a result, when the dust settled, the juje idea was there to stay. This wasn't merely inferred either.

No, they say it directly, with juje theory and application stating that, quoting, during the Fatherland Liberation War, that's what the North Koreans call it, the Korean War, we felt all the more keenly the necessity of establishing Juche, and how once the fighting ended, quoting again, the party waged an all-round struggle to root out flunkyism and

Dogmatism and firmly establish Juche in every field.

Reconstruction, therefore, was treated as an ideological test as much as a physical one. They describe factories rising on the ashes, and the people mounting Chalima and galloping forward free rein.

And Chalima, if you're wondering, is a mythical Korean horse noted for its speed, the name of which was used as the name of a 1950s Stachanova-esque rapid construction drive. And all of it was told, was vindication of Kim Il-sung's theories and a practical expression of the Juche idea.

In On the Juche idea, Kim Jong-il also wrote that it was in the immediate post-war world that his father started to refine the idea further, or, as he put it in communist ease, perfected through revolutionary practice.

And codified into four post-war pillars. Juchean ideology, independence in politics, self-sufficiency in the economy, and self-reliance as defense.

And every school, workplace, and military unit was expected to demonstrate the same spirit, to solve problems, quote, in an independent and creative way, end quote, so that ideology and survival became indistinguishable.

And from there, the Juche idea formally stopped being an abstract, born in wartime creed, and started to claim the status of a science in North Korea. And we mean that quite literally, too, as these following quotes drawn from many texts' evidence. The Juche idea gave a scientific answer to the question of man's position and role in the world.

The Juche viewpoint and approach provide scientific revolutionary methodology that guarantees the success in the people's cognition and practice. The Juche idea is the truly scientific and revolutionary world outlook of our time. So you can probably see what we mean.

The Juche idea, the nation's governing philosophy, literally came to be regarded as akin to a science, as true and as provable as physics.

And in much the same way as we would regard someone who claimed that the sky was red or that the earth was flat to be just a bit of a nutter, so self-apparented the Juche idea become in North Korea among the true believers that even questioning it started to seem not just impossible, but just a bit mad.

And from there, the line of the Juche idea as a science hardened.

Exactly when, we've got no idea, as none of the sources put it down to an exact year, and instead present it as an ongoing and cumulative matter. For example, origination and historical significance of the Juche idea states that, quoting, It can be said that the development and perfection of the guiding idea of revolution go through two stages.

The first stage is that it is founded and proclaimed.

The next stage is that it is enriched and developed with new ideological and theoretical achievements and perfected as a revolutionary guiding idea through protracted practice. End quote. And look, that boring word salad, again, totally okay if you glazed over. that I've got together one another one.

But igmatized It's about all you get out of any North Korean text on the matter. So let's just say, vaguely, late 50s, maybe early 60s. From there, not much changed, to be honest, at least for a while.

The slogans set, the rituals repeated, the Juche idea settled into muscle memory, becoming ideologically rehearsed as daily life. And then the 90s came, and that decade was abject hell for North Korea.

Between the collapse of the Soviet bloc, the very ecosystem within which they had learned to independently coexist, and a series of droughts that led to an equivalent series of catastrophic famines.

Interestingly, they did not deny that the famines happened. They're very open about them, in fact, calling them collectively the arduous march.

And as proof, they don't deny it, because it's a big claim we know, we have this extract from Democratic People's Republic of Korea, a Thun Times quarterly magazine that they churn out, specifically Volume 3 from 2021, and we'll quote, "...carrying forward the ennobling spirit and way of fighting in the days of the arduous march, when their country was in a

Worst-ever situation, the North Korean women dedicated all their wisdom, passion, and efforts at their posts," end quote.

And do you think that's just fodder put out for us foreigners? Here's Kim Jong-un referencing it in a 2014 speech, quoting again, "...the 1990s were a decade of trying ordeals, during which our people suffered the greatest national loss.

They also had to undergo the arduous march, and forced march, owing to a series of natural calamities and the enemy's pernicious, isolate-and-stifle schemes against our republic." In this grim period, and so on and so forth, you get the idea.

They fully admit to how much of a disaster the 90s were. So why are you bringing this up, Simon? What's this got to do with anything?

Wasn't this meant to be about North Korean ideology? Well, it's because from that chaos, a new idea spawned, a supplement of sorts to the Juche idea, Song-gun politics. The logic was simple.

The Juche idea had been about self-reliance in spirit, but the famine years demanded self-reliance in survival, mostly because when everything else failed, crops, trade, allies, the one institution that didn't collapse was the military. The Korean People's Army still ate, they still drilled, they still obeyed. And from that, Kim Jong-il drew a lesson.

That, as the rather rousingly titled book Song-gun Opens the Door of Independence and Prosperity puts it, quote, "...force of arms is the main in revolution, and the sovereignty, dignity, prosperity, and future of a country go along with the force of arms." End quote.

The same book calls the army, the party, the state, and the people, and explains that giving precedence to military affairs is the fundamental law of independence. And if that went over your head, once again, don't worry, because the other name for Song-gun politics, military-first politics, should make it obvious enough, because that's exactly what it is.

In practical terms, Song-gun politics is the doctrine that places the military at the absolute sin. center of everything government economy and ideology alike so now the military runs factories farms trading companies it builds roads power stations and department blocks when there's a food shortage it's the army that delivers the grain when a typhoon hits

It's the army that repairs the bridges soldiers are deployed as labor brigades as much as infantry divisions rotating between guard duty harvest duty and construction duty in pyongyang's newspapers their achievements fill the front pages barracks turn building site and platoons breaking ground on new railways and we're knocking on the head there for ideology

For now we could easily cover the full runtime of this entire episode just with ideology but that's not what we're really after today we're not planning to make you all scholars of the juche idea and song and politics per se but rather giving you a working foundation or knowledge and drilling in that they are the lens through which north korea sees itself

And everything else including the staff that we'll spend the rest of the episode covering starting with the big one nuclear weapons the nuclear question north korea's line on the bomb isn't complicated in their own words it's the logical end of a simple creed if independence is life then the only honest guarantee of independence is force the ultimate force

If the juche idea fundamentally boils down to autonomy and having full control over one's own affairs what better way to ensure that you are forever able to do exactly that would make any potentially hawkish nation think very carefully before trying anything it can also be seen as an expression of song gun politics because how the hell else does a nation

Such as north korea not exactly overflowing with wealth even get nukes in the first place other than by well putting the military first and totally restructuring society to support the advanced manufacturing and aerospace sectors as the absolute priority kim jong-un's own speeches frame it these ways too for example in 2012 on the centennial day of the sun

The annual celebration of his grandfather's birth he stated that kim il-sung had quote early on elucidated the philosophical principle that the gun barrel is the life of the nation and that putting quote importance to the gun barrel had brought a fundamental turnabout in the country's fate that framing is not the mere celebration of purported greatness is it

No it's celebrating the greatness of the idea the juche idea to be precise consider from 2013 to the incredibly titled speech let us add eternal brilliance to comrade kim jong-il's great idea of and achievements in the song on revolution by sheer coincidence what we're actually thinking about calling this channel because it's so damn catchy he called the

Korean people's army the buttress the main force of our revolution born of the anti-imperialist anti-us showdown that is straight up song on politics isn't it even says it in the title then throw in the odd extra sprinkling of explicitly duché idea talk self-reliance and defense as a fundamental principle of an independent sovereign state things like that

And you get the idea in fact to really drive home the importance of looking at north korea's nuclear weapons through that ideological lens let's make one thing truly clear they honestly do believe this shit they believe it in the same way that medieval laborers honestly believed that using their nearly non-existent income to help pay for new churches was a

Good use of their fleeting time on earth or in the way that keir starmer honestly believes that he's doing a good job as prime minister in short belief matters when trying to understand people and it's exactly the same with north korea sure we could just dismiss them all as would-be little americans just waiting to throw off their chains and enjoy some

Freedom or we could wrangle with the much more complicated notion that many of them genuinely believe in the system their country operates on and of course they would the nation is now three to four generations into its way of doing things no system survives that long without the consent of a cadre of elites at the very least we can use our framing much

Closer to ourselves to help us further wrap our heads around this too the soviet union because as much as we not without good reason admittedly write it off as a backward place of purges and questionable hairstyles it's clear that many citizens at the time felt loyalty to their homeland and were actively proud to live there perhaps not so much in the

Occupied baltic republics but certainly in parts of the others and indeed having mentioned the soviet union also allows us to segue to a more general point that's very important the fact that in real terms we know bugger all about north korea and won't until one way or another the system there collapses because that was exactly the case with the soviet union

Too basically for most of the cold war almost everything that we knew about life behind the iron curtain was essentially provisional pieced together from satellite photos grainy parade footage and whatever could be gleaned from the odd defector or pravdar editorial they even had a special term for study of the soviet union because so little did we know

Kremlinology even then if you were to apply scholarly rigor to it how could you actually prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt odds were nine times out of ten you couldn't and well it's exactly the same for north korea consider this to demonstrate the point famed north korean defector yang mi park says one thing lots of things in fact about life in the

Nation but then more under the radar defectors such as kim byong ook kim song min and an chan ill question her credibility and at various times have accused her of exaggerating her stories and can you prove to a scholarly degree who among them really speaks the truth because we can't all this is simply to emphasize that we shouldn't ignore you the role of

Belief in a society like North Korea.

Not necessarily belief in a god or anything like that, but belief in a system. A system in which the dominant ideology would naturally lead towards acquiring things like nuclear weapons.

Although we should inject some nuance here, because for all this talk of belief, ideology in the DPRK is often supplemented with more pragmatic framing where the bomb is concerned.

For example, at the Seventh Party Congress in 2016, Kim Jong-un stated that, quoting, "...it has been reaffirmed that the DPRK, as a responsible nuclear weapons state, will not misuse its nuclear weapons unless the aggressive hostile forces try to have recourse to their nuclear weapons against us." And sure, you could argue there's a whiff of the Juche idea

Going on there in a certain level, and indeed, given that Karl Marx himself argued that everything is political, perhaps North Korea is incapable of ever truly separating ideology from pragmatism.

But nonetheless, the statement remains fundamentally a pragmatic one.

We have these weapons now. Here's how we're going to use them. Easy.

Simple. And on the surface, that really does seem to be the whole of it, with such comments being a pragmatic face of the Juche idea in a nuclear rage. But the deeper you go into Pyongyang's own words, the more you realize that their pragmatism is defined very differently to ours.

Because, yes, they do talk about deterrence, and yes, they talk about stability, but they talk about it in their own language, under their own rules, and with an underlying assumption that survival and virtue are one and the same thing.

In 2018, for example, during his New Year's address, Kim Jong-un declared that the great historic cause of perfecting the national nuclear forces has been accomplished, before vowing to mass-produce nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles, all while styling the DPRK as a responsible, peace-loving nuclear power.

Two years later, at the parade marking the party's 75th anniversary, he called that arsenal a mighty sword for defending peace, insisting it would never be abused or used as a means for preemptive strike.

And such phrasing is telling. The bomb is presented not as a weapon of terror, but as a moral instrument, a kind of sacred relic, proof that independence, once again, has been defended through faith and force. That same paradox runs all the way through subsequent comments, too.

At the Eighth Party Congress in 2021, for instance, Kim again described the DPRK as a responsible nuclear weapon state, then immediately outlined a shopping list that would have any Cold War planner reaching for a tactical cushion to hide their excitement.

We're talking, of course, about tactical nuclear weapons, the small, battlefield-range kind intended for use against troop concentrations or hardened positions rather than cities. Hypersonic gliding warheads, the sort that skip through the upper atmosphere at over Mach 5 and can outmaneuver interception.

Solid-fuel ICBMs, the ones which are constantly fueled up and ready to go.

And a nuclear-powered submarine packing an underwater strategic weapon the intent is obvious to make the threat credible enough that no rational enemy would ever test it while simultaneously proving that a self-reliant socialist state can master the most advanced technologies on earth thus every new missile test every satellite launch becomes both sermon and

Science fair a performance of pragmatic reality as much as of indication of the juge idea this particular dichotomy was only further reinforced with time as well as in september 2022 a new law was passed the law on the state policy on nuclear forces this described nuclear arms as the main force of the state defense and placed them under the monolithic

Command of the president of the state affairs commission kim jong-un since 2016 and authorized an automatic and immediate nuclear responsive leadership or commander threatened that's a notable switch up too as from that point gone was the old straightforward and dare we say it actually quite reasonable no first use approach and in its place was a way vaguer

Line one that means now even attempts to destabilize or dare we say even sneak some operators in to cut the head off the snake has to be just as seriously considered as an actual preemptive nuclear strike it's worth saying at this point too because we are trying to be fair and objective today that north korea is far from the only nation on earth that doesn't

Have a no first use policy the u.s for one has never had such a policy and that is made very clear by its recent 2022 nuclear posture review which states that washington will consider the use of nuclear weapons in extreme circumstances to defend its own or its allies vital interests if anything it's an even vaguer line than north korea's and that's exactly

Why it's powerful because do you generic dictator number 65 who doesn't like the united states want to find out where that line is no you do not the 51st state adopts a similar position too as the uk maintains what it calls deliberate ambiguity about when it would deploy a nuclear weapon as also does france which states that it's forced to frappe exists to

Defend its vital interests further east the picture isn't much different russia formally abandoned the soviet union's explicit no first use policy adopted in 1982 and now reserves the right to nuclear force not only in response to a nuclear strike but also to any conventional attack that quote threatens the existence of the state this is basically pakistan's

Line too as they say outright that they will use any weapon in its arsenal to defend themselves you get the idea it sounds extreme when pyongyang says that they'll use nuclear weapons preemptively under certain conditions and to be fair given the apocalyptic end of all life as we know it is what this could lead to it objectively is an extreme position but

It's not one that they are alone in so then what have we actually learned in this chapter well we've learned that north korea's nuclear stance is âce fundamentally not just some unhinged aberration but the extreme logical conclusion of the same philosophy that has guided it since its inception, independence made tangible.

The Touche idea says that the nation's fate rests in its own hands, and Song'un translates that creed into steel and powder.

The bomb is simply where that line ends up when it's followed to its furthest possible point, the point where self-reliance becomes self-armament, and the abstract dream of never being conquered again is quite literally bolted to a launch rail. To Pyongyang, the moral argument is simple too. The bomb is not evil, dependence is.

The right to exist on one's own terms has always been framed there as a sacred principle, and the means by which that right is defended are automatically sanctified. So the state presents its arsenal not as an abomination, but as a purifying fire, the weapon that prevents weakness, the proof that the creed holds true.

Force in this worldview isn't corruption, it's virtue.

In their eyes, restraint is what led to colonization, power is what ended it, and what is more powerful than a nuclear bomb? It's the learned behavior of a nation that was once invaded, partitioned, carpet bombed, and left to rebuild the ruins. To them, the idea that security can be guaranteed by promises is not just naive, it is suicidal.

The lesson of the 20th century, from Pyongyang's perspective, was that nobody comes to save you, except China, I guess. But even then, Beijing took its time getting involved in the war. And so the nuclear deterrent becomes something much larger than a tool of statecraft.

It's a memorial, a warning, an insurance policy all at once. The country may lack a lot of things, trade, allies, even electricity some nights. But what it does not lack, what it cannot lack, is the ability to make the rest of the world hesitate.

And when you see it that way, the bomb stops looking like a separate pillar of policy and starts looking like infrastructure. Another national construction project built on the same ideological blueprints as the dams, factories, and apartment blocks.

In the same way that the Juche idea demands a self-sufficient economy and Songun demanded a self-reliant army, the nuclear program demands a self-sustaining modernity.

Every missile launch is an advertisement for the regime's own competence, a proof to its people that socialism, their socialism, still creates. The warhead and the tractor roll off the same rhetorical production line. One feeds, the other protects.

Both affirm the creed. But of course, nuclear weapons are only the most spectacular proof of that creed. The same logic that self-reliance is both moral duty and existential necessity runs through every other part of their system too.

The fields, the factories, the greenhouses, the apartment complexes rising in Pyongyang's skyline, they all carry the same message. Survival is success, and creation is resistance. If the nuclear program made independence visible through force, the economy's task is to make it visible through productivity. through activity.

And that, coincidentally, is what we're going to be turning to next, the economy, to see how the same doctrine that built a bomb out of isolation now tries to build prosperity out of scarcity, and how that affects their worldview.

The Economics of Survival If the bomb was the proof that North Korea could defend itself independently, then the economy is the proof that it can feed itself independently. Normally, the quite straightforward notion of economic independence is called autoky, self-sufficiency, things like that.

And indeed, the North Koreans use those terms too, but they also use others. Because of course, to them, it isn't just self-sufficiency as an economic concept, it is in fact the Juche idea made tangible. Consider as examples the following two quotes, both from The Building of a Thriving Socialist Country.

To build an independent national economy is a principled requirement of the Juche idea. And holding fast to the Juche idea means building an economy of our style, relying on our own technology, raw materials, and fuel. Clear as day, isn't it?

To be Ong Yang, national prosperity isn't just a matter of objective good, what with poverty obviously being quite the shit thing to have to endure, but a moral measurement of ideological truth.

The Juche idea, after all, does not separate the material from the spiritual, and so equally it insists that ideology and prosperity are two halves of the same thing. In its telling, thought shapes matter, and a correct worldview produces tangible abundance.

To be prosperous is therefore to be ideologically sound, and to be ideologically sound is to be prosperous. It's a feedback loop that turns every new factory, every harvest, every apartment block, into proof that the national faith is working exactly as designed. The economy isn't just what the Juche idea governs, it is the Juche idea.

And that is your headline takeaway of the matter. So let's now fire the microscope up for a closer inspection, specifically by looping back to the words independent national economy, because this term, or paraphrases of it, repeat like a drumbeat throughout North Korean literature.

Take as an example man's destiny and the Juche idea, which states that the self-sustaining economy is the fundamental guarantee of sovereignty.

Then there's on the road for people's well-being, which says he, as in Kim Jong-un, set forth the task to strengthen the independent national economy and open the way to prosperity by our own efforts.

Then for one last one, there's world affection for the people, which states, the respected comrade Kim Jong-un is energetically leading the people of the independent national economy and the improvement of the people's living standards. So you can probably see what we mean.

They are absolutely head over heels for this notion. And if you're wondering what they actually mean by that, beyond vague notions of autarchy, well, it actually basically just means that, which we can see if we... Backtrack to the ironically named The Building of a Thriving Socialist Country, as it tells us this.

The independent national economy we are building is an economy with a comprehensive structure of its own, based on our own technology, raw materials, and fuel. It is an economy capable of ensuring the people's independent and creative lives and the country's political independence by its own efforts.

Only when we firmly build such an independent national economy can we safeguard the sovereignty of the country and the nation and accelerate socialist construction on the principle of self-reliance.

See what we mean? And as for what that actually looks like in the real world, the real mechanisms of the national economy, well, I mean strap in, because this is going to take some time. On paper, it's very simple, though.

The state, meaning Kim Jong-un himself, along with the State Planning Commission, currently chaired by Vice Premier Park Jong-un, writes the country's economic plans and the cabinet, i.e. the government under Premier Park Saesong, with vice premiers like Park Jong-un executing it and everyone obeying it.

And everyone here refers to roughly 30 ministries, covering things like industry, agriculture, transport, energy, finance, and trade, each run by its own minister but coordinated through the premier and his deputies.

Beneath them all sit the provisional and city people's committees, which relay the cabinet's orders further down to the factories, farms, and cooperatives that have to make the arithmetic work in real life.

So you get the basic idea. It's a complicated structure, and in what probably shouldn't come as a surprise, given communism and all that, it isn't exactly what you'd call a hands-off system of decision-making. And that, naturally, requires some mechanisms to help ensure that the government's mandate actually gets implemented.

Hence why one of Kim Jong-un's first reforms upon his ascension was to implement a new system that served as a halfway house between civil servant-decides-everything and limited industrial autonomy. The Socialist Enterprise Responsibility Management System, or CERMS.

Under CERMS, the state still owns the factories and sets their quotas, but managers are granted responsibility for how those orders are fulfilled, controlling labor, sourcing materials, balancing costs and profits, and even trading with other enterprises when central supply falls short.

The arrangement was written into Article 33 of the 2016 Constitution, which instructs the Republic to, quote, enforce the socialist system of responsible business operation and make proper use of such economic levers as cost, price, and profit, end quote.

And Kim, in turn, reinforced it in his 2018 New Year's address, demanding that the system, quote, prove its worth in factories, enterprises, and cooperatives.

In practice, it's a controlled decentralization, limited autonomy wrapped in the language of the Juche idea, allowing a little bit of flexibility so long as every success can still be claimed as proof of the plan.

And here's where those grand slogans about our own technology, raw materials, and fuel start to acquire some grease under the finger. And here's where it is.

All right. else too, because factories aren't just told what to produce, they're told to do it with domestic inputs, coal from their own pits, steel from their own mills, electricity from their own grid.

Imports are a thing, but they are a last resort, usually only reserved for times of dire supply chain failure, or whatever mother nature has chosen not to bless North Korea with by way of its natural bounties. Oil would be a big one, with much of the nation's oil coming from China via the Dangdong-Shinzui pipeline.

Cars are poised to be a potential big one too, as in the beginning of 2025, Pyongyang legalized private car ownership, and when you look at the pictures of all the shiny new yellow number-plated cars on the streets, the color that denotes a privately owned vehicle, you're just as likely to see an imported, through China, Toyota, or a Chinese-made sherry, as

You are a locally produced Pyonghua.

Although we couldn't find any primary source that alluded to the exact arrangement that gets them into the country. If we are to believe the book Fundamentals of Building an Independent National Economy, North Korea is relying on domestic industry to supply 60-70% of industrial materials and importing the rest.

We also know that agriculture, in true communist fashion, remains very collectivized, seemingly right down to the last furrow, in fact, with all farming in North Korea being run through a web of cooperative farms that are collectively owned, but centrally directed.

Our evidence for this claim is Article 22 of the Constitution, which lays it out plainly. The state leads the cooperative economy with all people's property and improves guidance and management of the cooperative economy, industrializing and modernizing agriculture.

Although it does appear as though there's been some certification of Agriculture 2, as in a 2014 letter to the National Conference of Sub-Work Team Leaders, Kim Jong-un ordered that every leader must take responsibility for the yield of his sub-team and link responsibility with results.

And it does seem to work, at least on paper. Each farm is divided into work teams and smaller sub-work teams of around 10 to 25 people. And under Kim's link responsibility with results doctrine, those sub-units now have to deliver a set quota to the state and can keep whatever's left.

The state claims that this intensifies the sense of ownership among the farmers, but it's just as easy to see it as a survival mechanism. Collective farming with a market-shaped shadow. The state still gets its cut and likely the lion's share, but with just that little tease of personal self-enrichment, production goes up as a gross and everyone is a winner.

And now let's talk about money.

The central bank of the DPRK, by its own law, quite literally the central banking law, is the sole issuing authority and executor of monetary policy responsible for organizing currency circulation stabilized. the value and exchange rate of the one and strengthening centralized banking discipline there's also the companion monetary circulation law which

States that payments for goods and services are administered in accordance with the national economic plan i.e money doesn't actually move because someone wants to buy something it moves because the plan or someone executing it says that it should in practice this means that within the official economy factories ministries and local governments don't

Transfer funds freely they settle accounts through the state banking system as the plan dictates using money more as an accounting marker than as a market tool so if machine tool plants in chongjin need spare parts from a foundry in ham hung the two don't pay each other directly the central bank adjusts the relevant ledgers because the plan already joined

Those transactions months ago that's the theory anyway the law's real purpose is to keep the plant economy circulation sealed off from the market economy that ordinary north koreans actually use wages bonuses and enterprise budgets are meant to circulate inside of this plan's loop the sterile state bank version of money while the jang madang markets and

Private traders run on the grubby real version one dollars or anything that people trust the results are dual system on paper the central bank stabilizes circulation and executes monetary policy in line with the plan i.e it handles the big stuff but the actual day-to-day of things for citizens is essentially that which we are familiar within the west they

Get paid and what they do with it from there is up to them with the goods and services they need to access if they aren't free at the point of use having a price tag on them that they can either afford or they can't afford outside the borders the same principle of controlled openness applies article 36 of the constitution allows state organs enterprises and

Cooperatives to conduct foreign trade but only quote on the principles of equality and mutual benefits it sounds fair until you realize what it actually means trade is permitted only when it doesn't imply dependence the fundamentals of building an independent national economy drives this point home arguing that the country must quote first consolidate the

Material foundations of the independent national economy and then expand economic relations with other countries on an equal footing it's juge idea 101 build and consolidate first then shake the hands and never in a way that makes you need anyone so the foreign trade ministry signs a handful of joint ventures the special economic zones keep their lights on

Just enough for photographs and the leadership insists that this too is proof of self-reliance to them independence isn't isolation it's leverage they'll sell you coal or seafood if they want to but the moment you call it aid or imply they're getting a good rate out of it the deal's off so how does that work with things like oil for which we've already

Established that north korea is largely dependent upon imports generally they tap article 36 insist that the trade is done on equal footing and so it's fine however then this farmer distributions trust that trade is done up they've底est for ci unless we get a choice we agree is an interesting point here.

As much as there's no shortage of self-aggrandizing in North Korean rhetoric, particularly when it comes to economics, there is also far more frank introspection and admission of failure than you might first expect.

For example, at the Eighth Party Congress in 2021, Kim himself told delegates that, quote, almost all sectors fell a long way short of the set objectives, and that, quoting again, the objectives for the growth of the national economy fell a long way short of implementation. The people's living standards could not be improved remarkably.

He even went so far as to say that plans had not been properly set on the basis of scientific calculation, and that the irrational economic work system and discipline was not properly done.

And that wasn't a one-off, either, as subsequent plenary sessions of the party's central committee have recycled the same language almost word for word. In 2023, for example, the report to the Eighth Plenum admitted to shortcomings and wrong attitudes revealed in the struggle for implementing the state economic policies.

By mid-2024, the Tenth Plenum was again identifying, quote, some shortcomings and mistaken practices revealed in the course of implementing the party and state economic policies, end quote.

But if you really want to have your mind blown, put your mind back to the October 2020 military parade for the 75th anniversary of the Workers' Party of Korea, as there Kim Jong-un not only personally apologized for his own failings, but cried while doing it, quote, our people have placed trust as high as sky and as deep as sea on me, but I have failed to

Always live up to it satisfactorily.

I am really sorry for that. Although I am entrusted with the important responsibility to lead this country, upholding the cause of the great comrades Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, thanks to the trust of all the people, my efforts and sincerity have not been sufficient enough to rid our people of the difficulties in their life, end quote.

And look, let's stop and apply that narrative breaks at this point, because no matter how you cut it, that does not fit in with the popular image of North Korea, as indeed, basically all of this admitting to fuck up stuff doesn't.

So if we want to understand the North Korean worldview, or at least try to understand it, moments like this that challenge preconceptions are vital to wrangle with. Ultimately, we weren't in his head, and he's unlikely to be giving us a candid tell-all interview anytime soon, although we're absolutely up for it.

But logically, we can boil his reasoning for doing this down to one of three options. First, the charitable interpretation, the one that assumes he meant it. Kim's tears might have been exactly what they looked like, the pressure valve hissing open on a decade of unrelieved strain.

He was a relatively young man, presiding over a country boxed in by sanctions, disease, natural disaster, and history.

And so by that reading, the apology was a genuine expression of exhaustion and guilt, the instinctive reaction of a leader who had spent years promising leaps forward and instead saw living standards fall back from an already low base then there's the juxtaposition to that view the one that says that it's all just a ruse and that kim jong-un is actually a

Cynical psychopath faking human emotion to sell the idea that he really buys into his nation's purported purpose and identity while actually behind the scenes he thinks it's all just a big old load of bollocks and certainly the timing of that parade was almost too perfect to ignore around number anniversary the pandemic still raging and economy that was

Evidently flagging within that logic contrition becomes just another management tool a public relations reset disguised as repentance the message is not that the jushie idea failed but the jushie idea is still a banging belief set it's the implementation of it that failed so no need to want for anything else right now but also there's a third position to

Consider the one that says that kim is a true believer but a pragmatic one in this interpretation he would legitimately believe in the jushie idea as a spouse but there'd also be a certain part of his mind that's fully aware that objectively he's got a quite good thing going on and so would want to ensure that the system as it stands endures for his own good

We'll leave you to decide which one you believe to be correct for yourselves as we say it's not like we have any way of actually knowing for sure and whichever one it does end up being it doesn't affect the overall conclusion from this chapter anyway if there's one thing all of this should have shown us it's that trying to understand north korea isn't just

About memorizing its policies or its weapons but about trying to put yourself in their shoes to expose yourself to the same emotional and logical stimuli as they do and see what conclusions naturally present themselves having done so and the economy is just a huge part of that in a planned economy such as north korea and more broadly near total state as it

Is the economy is the average person's the most regular interaction with their government and indeed its ruling ideology consider a factory worker in ham hung his workshop runs under the cerm system which means he's told the quota but how to meet it is his responsibility he's being trained day in and day out to think like the state does that freedom is only

Virtuous when it serves the plan that same principle applies to a farm team leader in south huang hai whose subunit must meet its grain quota but is allowed to keep whatever's left the initiative is acceptable only when it reinforces collective success this is how cerms works as psychology it doesn't just make production flexible it makes obedience feel like

Agency and then there's the money when your wages are paid in the currency whose value is defined by a national plan rather than a market you learn that value itself is political every transaction becomes an act of faith in the state a quiet confirmation that the state's word decides what is real and when you have to step into the jammer dangs to buy what

The plan and forgot you're still participating in the same moral economy.

You know the official story, and you know the workaround, and somehow both feel legitimate because both serve the goal of survival.

The dual-currency system we talked about isn't just an economic quirk, it's a training ground for acceptable cognitive dissonance, the kind that props up the system instead of challenging it.

Even in scarcity the logic holds, the rhetoric that turns oil imports into transactions between equals is mirrored domestically every time a shortage is framed as a lesson in self-reliance. When the lights flicker off, the moral switches go on.

Hardship is evidence that the nation is still pure, still independent, still itself. The same principle that defines their foreign policy also defines the way an ordinary person explains their own misfortune. The world is unreliable, so the only safe thing to trust is us.

Next up, it's time we turn away from the DPRK's internal struggles towards something far more controversial. Foreign Policy The Eternal Enemy As far as North Korea is concerned, the Korean War, or the Fatherland Liberation War as they call it, never ended.

The guns may have stopped in 1953, but the struggle against the U.S. did not, and continues to this very day.

Before we start pulling the aftermath apart, though, let's take it right back to the very beginning of the conflict to explain something vital. The fact that, in the North Korean view, they did not start the war.

And TLDR, for all of those who've never looked into this conflict in particular, the version of events that we teach in the West goes something like this.

After years of border clashes and mutual chess beating, Kim Il-sung secured Stalin's blessing and Mao's tacit thumbs up for a short, decisive liberation of the peninsula. And so, at dawn on the 25th of June 1950, the KPA crossed the 38th parallel on multiple axes, aiming straight for Seoul.

The UN Security Council, convening while the Soviet seat was boycotting, condemned the attack and called for withdrawal.

Then after mere days, the U.S., along with the UK, Australia, and others, intervened by land, sea, and air. Then what was expected in Pyongyang to be a quick unification spiraled into a three-year international war, the North fighting with Soviet kit, and, from the late 1950s, massive Chinese manpower, the South fighting under a U.S.-led UN command.

Pick up a book in North Korea, however, like, say, the impressively direct tome, The U.S. Imperialists Started the Korean War, and what you will be told is, quote, The U.S. Imperialists and the treacherous Syngman Rhee clique, having long prepared for a fratricidal war, finally started it at the instigation of the U.S. in spite of the consistent, sincere

Efforts of our people for unifying the country in a peaceful way.

The U.S. Imperialists, who legally occupied South Korea and made it a colony and military base for aggression, furnished the puppet army of the Syngman Rhee clique with modern arms and ammunition and incited it to launch an armed invasion of the northern half of the republic and look we're not going to worry about what is the correct version spoilers it's

The first one because what we are far more bothered about today is the consequences of the north korean version of events for how they perceive the world today and on that note to north korea the korean war isn't just history it is the moral origin story of their state think about how the u.s thinks of the revolutionary war how haiti thinks of the haitian

Revolution or how algeria thinks of the war of independence and you basically get the idea even though it broke out two years after the nation was founded same difference in terms of memorialization and perception and it's a belief that becomes the foundational building block of their worldview if the u.s began the war then every act of resistance since be

It military political or economic is not aggression it's ever continuing self-defense and from that single conviction several others flow first that the country's very existence is proof of moral superiority because they are the underdog who faced down what is now the world's only superpower and survived and continue to do so despite as they see it constant

Agitation and harrying of their borders seconds there's also the conviction that by seeing off the imperialists north korea as kim il-sung himself put it safeguarded peace and security of the world in particular of asia because they didn't just defend themselves they saved humanity from imperialism spread and third the conviction that the u.s imperialists

Launched an armed invasion of the dprk permanently fuses national identity to vigilance if invasion birthed the country then preparedness preserves it peace can never be trusted because peace is the prelude to betrayal this is the mental architecture that underpins everything isolation isn't pathology it's proof of learning a nation that believes it was

Attacked for its virtue must live as if virtue is always under attack and all of that the war is genesis endurance as virtue vigilance as survival still shapes every corner of their thought it explains why anti-americanism isn't a policy line just to them but to the emotional foundation of the state and why every modern act from a missile test to a food

Ration drive can be narrated as the latest skirmish in that same unending war and it's from that conviction that today's north korean behavior its paranoia its pride and its stubborn coherence flows and don't take our word for that either because we can demonstrate that flow in the language they use today as all three of those convictions permeate all

Official discourse that concerns foreign affairs in his 2020 address at the party's 75th anniversary parade for example kim jong-un thanked the people for having quote firmly trusted and defended me braving all sorts of difficulties even while enduring quoting again harsh and prolonged sanctions he then went on to describe the country's arsenal as a mighty

Sword for defending peace telling us that they've helped it so many people say what opposite things may have made worden that will never be abused or used as a means for preemptive strike, turning restraint itself into virtue.

Two years earlier, in his 2018 New Year's address, it made the same point in broader form, quoting again, the moves of the United States and its vassal forces to isolate and stifle our country went to extremes. Yet the dignity and might of our state have been further raised.

End quote. It's clear-cut moralizing, all rooted in the notion that the US is the aggressor and that North Korea is the righteous victim.

The second conviction, the one that says that by seeing off the imperialists, they did more than just defend themselves, can be seen clearly in the same speech when Kim states that, quote, our country's nuclear forces are capable of thwarting and countering any nuclear threats from the United States.

End quote. Calling them, quoting again, a powerful deterrent that prevents the US from starting an adventurous war. End quote.

A year earlier, he pushed the same point forward too, when he stated that, quoting again, we will defend peace and security of our state at all costs and by our own efforts, and make a positive contribution to safeguarding global peace and stability. End quote.

And finally, if you want the single cleanest line that shows how vigilance is intrinsically fused with national identity, consider this speech from October 2020, when Kim, after thanking his populace, who, quote, have supported the party single-handedly and defended its cause.

End quote. He promised to, quoting again, safeguard the eternal safety of the state and people, and vowed that if any forces infringe upon the security of our state, it would enlist all our most powerful offensive strength in advance. That's not episodic readiness.

That is vigilance as a standing identity claim. The nation itself defined as a community that is forever prepared because its very dignity depends on it. And now, here's some more general points on the matter of the US as the eternal enemy, just to round off our understanding.

The first is what you might call the original sin of division, because, you see, North Korea's original histories treat the border at the 38th parallel not just as mere geography, but as a crime scene. The very point where America authored both Korea's collective trauma, the South as colonial subjects, and the North as victims of colonial meddling.

As Understanding Korea, 10 Reunification Question, put it, and yes, we didn't misspeak, that is, the title is written, quote, two young officers drew a demarcation line along the 38th parallel with a pencil and a ruler, and in doing so, brought about the tragic division of Korea.

End quote. It's not just the tale of a nation torn asunder by external meddling from the great powers of the day, torn apart as a little bit of sphere of influence, war booty amongst the victorious allied powers of World War II.

No, it is a casual imperial doodle that condemned a civilization to mutilation, an act so careless it must have been malicious and yet so precise.

Nice. that it appears as though it's going to be permanent. The United Nations itself is written into the indictment too, as in the same book, Washington's 1947 decision to haul the Korea question before the UN is decried as, quote, an act which ran counter to the UN Charter, carried out without any delegate of the Korean people.

The organization that styles itself as the global arbiter is, therefore, in North Korea's eyes, merely a US proxy, a soft power-legal facade for the same power that drew its border.

Every subsequent UN resolution from human rights votes to sanctions is thus pretainted, a continuation of that founding injustice, another rubber stamp on a preordained crime.

As the Korean Central News Agency, North Korea's main broadcaster, put it in 2017, the UN Security Council itself is, quote, a tool of evil made up of money-bribed countries that move at the order of the United States, end quote, a chamber whose gavel falls only when Washington wills it, essentially.

Given China and Russia are both members, that's quite the claim.

But still, it at least fits in with their worldview, that every condemnation, every sanction rollout is already counterfeit law, the very architecture of legitimacy turned inside out and stamped with the aggressor's own seal. And then there's the question of aid. Simply put, as far as North Korea is concerned, aid is colonialization by contract.

It never comes truly free, nor without any strings attached.

This belief is laid out in that book that we mentioned earlier, the US imperialists started the Korean War, as in it, post-war aid to the South is accused of binding their economy to the dollar and seizing Japanese-owned assets left over from their colonization under the banner of the New Korea Company for America's benefit.

The text is explicit, quoting, Establishing political, economic, and military control by aid represented one of the neo-colonialist ruling forms.

US economic aid is aimed at military and political control over them. US military government ordinance number two on enemy property, rights, and interests are hereby taken over by the United States military government office.

The Oriental Development Company was renamed the New Korea Company, owning 286,767 hectares, the biggest landlord in South Korea, end quote.

Then there's this extract from a KCNA report in 2015 that hits the same beats, quoting again, The US imperialists are clamoring about aid while scheming to put other countries under their control. Their aid is nothing but a noose for domination and plunder.

They are turning South Korea into a colony under the dollar, grabbing all key industries, and even the land left by the Japanese imperialists under the signboard of relief and reconstruction.

Looming to is the ledger of atrocities that North Korea accuses the US and its allies of perpetrating during the Korean War. The 1993 reissue of the US imperialists started the Korean War goes into a lot of detail about this. having long, final sections of the book dedicated to it, and it reads like a catalogue of moral evidence.

Mass murder, scorched earth operations, even germ warfare.

The point isn't whether these things actually happened. It's that one way or another, they are a fundamental part of the North Korean psyche. The bombed villages, the napalmed hills, the dead children.

They are not just historical memories, but sacramental images repeated until they become the moral DNA of the nation. Every new generation learns that its state was not merely born in war but in righteous pain and that the world has already judged and failed.

Perhaps that's why the war is always portrayed as someone else's fault, with North Korea listing 2,617 supposed provocations from 1949 alone right on the cusp of war.

It's the seed of their war-never-ended worldview. Every later clash or sanction or joint drill is merely item 2,618 or 2,619 and so on and so forth. Interestingly, they also believe that not only was a true peace deal never signed after the Korean War, but that the armistice itself is null and void too, due to both the US and the South violating it.

Specifically, they point to paragraph 60, which states that, quote, in order to ensure the peaceful settlement of the Korean question, the military commanders of both sides hereby recommend to the governments of the countries concerned on both sides that within three months after the armistice agreement is signed and becomes effective, a political conference

Of a higher level of both sides be held by representatives appointed respectively to settle through negotiation, the questions of the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Korea, the peaceful settlement of the Korean question, etc. End quote.

Now, that never happened. And in North Korean logic, that means the armistice is void, and thus the war never truly stopped.

Every American soldier still stationed south of the DMZ is living evidence of betrayal, each one walking claws of an unfulfilled contract. This is why self-defense remains the default verb of North Korean diplomacy. Until the foreigners leave, every day is the 25th of June, 1950.

And as much as we're being all neutral and objective today, or trying to be anyway, we will draw your attention to one particular word in that extract, that may have been missed. Listen again. The military commanders of both sides hereby recommend, recommend, that's the word there, recommend that they talk about foreign troop withdrawal.

How you interpret that word in this context is up to yourself, of course, but we wouldn't feel that we were doing our jobs right if we didn't draw your attention to it explicitly.

While we're on the matter of the armistice too, to segue back to the matter at hand, North Korea also paints itself as the real peacemaker, the only party in that infernal conflict that ever really pushed for peace. According to these claims, again, as found in the US imperialists started the Korean War, North Korea

Korea gave a near endless sequence of olive branches, the April 1948 North-South Joint Conference, the proposals for all-Korea general elections, the repeated offers to reduce forces to under 100,000. Each predictably was, quote, frustrated by the United States and its puppet clique. It's a neat inversion, if nothing else.

To the outside world, North Korea is bellicose. To itself, it is saintly perseverance incarnate. The pattern allows Pyongyang to be both besieged victim and magnanimous elder, forever wronged, forever extending the hand.

And we mean that quite literally, too, as they even had a monument that did exactly that, the reunification arch that signaled their want to supposedly peacefully reunify that was erected in 2001. Key word, though, had it was demolished in 2024, amongst worsening relations with the South.

Taken together, all this forms the true skeleton beneath the rhetoric, a civilization built on its wound.

America's pencil line becomes the axis of an entire cosmology. The UN its false priesthood, aid its disguised chain, and the sanctions, the modern artillery barrage. The catalog of atrocities provides scripture, the unkept armistice, prophecy, the nuclear arsenal, redemption.

And all this talk of the US naturally leads to another question. What of North Korea's northern neighbor? And are they really besties, as some in the West think?

Or is North Korea China's rabid little attack dog that it keeps leashed for reasons as wide and varied as simple hegemon promotion to access to Pyongyang's weirdly rich fields of natural resources? Well, hold that thought, because in the next chapter we're going to be looking at what Pyongyang itself has to say on that very matter.

China, the revolutionary ally.

From Pyongyang's perspective, the story of Korea's friendship with China doesn't begin with diplomacy. It begins with revolution. In Reminiscences, Volume 4, Kim Il-sung recalls fighting shoulder to shoulder with Chinese comrades in the same trenches, sharing rations, hardships, and victories during the anti-Japanese struggle.

A bond formed not by agreement, but by blood.

The later work, Friendship Between Korea and China, will be carried forward from generation to generation, another snappy title, there repeats the same image, writing that the friendship was forged in the flames of the anti-imperialist struggle and tempered through every trial of history so that no force could ever break it.

Mao Zedong's famous remark also is quoted often that on the five-starred red flag of China is the blood of Korean communists.

And North Korean writers never tire of pairing it with Kim Il-sung's own phrase that the peoples of Korea and China are linked by blood and destiny.

In Reminiscences, The Same Kim even notes that when the Chinese Revolution was in peril in Manchuria… Korea, Korean partisans sent supplies, comrades, and hope, a detail often cited as proof that the friendship began before either republic was born. The point is clear, the alliance wasn't signed into existence, it was fought into being.

The theme continues in the friendship book with a really long name that we don't want to repeat, as it states, the crucible in which the comradeship of the two peoples was purified in blood.

And when in Pyongyang's telling, quote, the US imperialists launched an armed invasion of the northern half, Mao Zedong's response is presented as an act of heroic fraternity, quoting again, Chairman Mao, though his own republic was still in its infancy, dispatched the Chinese people's volunteers under the banner of Resist America, Aid Korea, Defend the

Motherland, end quote.

The book's captions linger on the images, Kim Il-sung conferring with Peng Dae-hwai, commanders of the Korean People's Army and Chinese people's volunteers studying the same map, the awarding of medals to returning Chinese officers in 1958.

It concludes that, quote, in the flames of the fierce struggle against the US imperialists, the comradeship and brotherhood of the two peoples are consolidated with blood, end quote.

When the volunteers finally withdrew, Kim Il-sung called their departure a shining example of mutual trust and revolutionary obligation, a line that has been reprinted in pretty much every North Korean history of the war since. From there, the friendship becomes lineage.

Yet more books with really long titles, such as the DPRK-PRC Friendship from one century into the next, published in 2022. It ran with the narrative seamlessly, Kim Il-sung with Mao Zedong and Zhao and Lai, Kim Jong-il with Deng Xiaoping, Jian Zemin and Hu Jintao, and finally, Kim Jong-un with Xi Jinping.

In fact, the book literally says that the revolutionary friendship formed by the great leaders has been handed down from generation to generation, shining brighter with every year that passes.

The same formula appears in the 2025 edition of the journal Foreign Trade 2, which translates that rhetoric into economics, writing that cooperation with China is carried out, quote, on the principles of equality and mutual benefit, end quote, pointing to the Pyongyang Spring Trade Fair and the One Sand Development Zone as examples.

A map in the article also shows new rail and sea corridors, quote, linking to Dandong, Liaoning province of China, and they're labeled as roots of friendship. Ceremony itself is an important part of the story, too.

If we look back to the DPRK-PRC Friendship from one century to the next book, it is seen that the meetings between Kim Jong-un and Xi Jinping are described in loving, almost romantic detail.

The banquets at the Diao Yutai State Guesthouse, the couple's tea ceremony in a family atmosphere, the stroll along the Dalyan seafront, the photograph beside the spruce tree planted by Kim Il-sung in 1959. At times, it's hard to figure out whether you're reading propaganda or someone's bizarre Xi Jinping-Kim Jong-un erotic fiction.

Or as the book itself puts it, these scenes demonstrate the warm comradeship and- trust between the leaders of the two parties and that each new meeting adds a new chapter to the history of friendship written in the hearts of the two peoples just this point would just wipe a manly tear from our eye the conclusion of it all is almost liturgical too in

Friendship will be carried forward from generation to generation they quote kim jongen declaring that to develop the dprk china friendship to a new high stage is the steadfast stand of our party in government opposite that line they print xi jinping's response the friendship rooted in blood will last for generations as an evergreen tree that never loses its

Color the book then ends with the same sentence repeated in korean and chinese forged in the flames of arduous struggle and never losing its true nature through the storms of history the dprk china friendship will be transmitted from century to century from generation to generation so yes really long story short as far as the north koreans say it's all happy

Dappy fun times with their closest both literally and figuratively ally and frankly whether you come down on the oh my god they literally killed five billion people a day with aa guns what an actual hellhole side of interpreting north korea or the north korea did nothing wrong or praise to respected marshal kim jong-un may you continue to provide auspicious

Field guidance onto my heart neither beijing or pyongyang would ever present it another way i mean why would they trade meetings could turn into a wwe match where jong and suplexes jinping through a table or where the latter takes chair shots on the former until they reach an understanding and neither side would ever tell us because they both have a vested

Interest in presenting a united front to the outside world it's a mental image for you isn't it but still even the warmest friendships have their limits and pyongyang has always known that sentiment bends to circumstance china may remain the ceremonial comrade the one favored for parades slogans and photo ops but the gravitational pull of real politic is

Tugging the north back toward its other historical orbit moscow and so that's exactly where we'll turn next to the ally that once defined its revolution and that now after years of silence has come knocking again the old ally the picture that flashed around the world in september 2023 could have come from a cold war newsreel an armored green train easing

Into the vostri cosmodrome vladimir putin waiting at the end of the platform and kim jong-un stepping down in a you've got to admit rather snazzy long black coat for pyongyang though it was not merely international pageantry it was vindication the two nations under heavy sanctions meeting as equals presenting the world with an image of parity while firmly

And proverbially extending their middle fingers and waving them in a vaguely western direction it's not a new image either it's one that goes back decades and perhaps unsupportable surprisingly, to the days of the Soviet Union, with the text writing a new chapter in the history of DPRK-Russia friendship, outlining how, in Pyongyang's view, the two nations

Quote, forged their comradeship in the anti-Japanese struggle, and that further it was constantly developed through mutual cooperation and support, end quote.

It was then lifted into the new century as doctrine.

Within this narrative, the July 2000 Pyongyang summit, where Putin met with Kim Jong-il during his first ever visit to the nation, becomes a historic milestone, and the DPRK-Russia joint declaration that was signed, which declared the determination and will of the governments and peoples of the two countries to develop their friendly relations in a fresh way

In the new century, and pledged to ensure peace and security of Asia and the rest of the world, and contribute to the development of sound international relations, good lord, that's a long sentence, becomes a foundational myth in diplomatic form.

A text that turned political normalization after the collapse of the Soviet Union into moral restoration.

We mean that quite literally, too, as North Korean publications frame it as the moment Russia re-entered the revolutionary family, despite its newfound capitalist way of economics, the act that opened a new era of cooperation based on independence and equality, as they put it themselves.

And indeed, that quote certainly aged like fine wine, as every later summit, declaration, and exchange that would take place between the two nations would trace its lineage back to that document, treated not as mere diplomatic convenience, but as scripture for how two states on the global naughty list could still claim to stand above the politics of need.

For example, the following year, when Kim Jong-il returned the favor and headed to Moscow on a trip that the aforementioned book called a 20,000 kilometer journey of devotion across Siberia, the whole thing is framed as a kind of traveling sermon for the Juche idea, with the Moscow declaration signed being described as something for maintaining world

Stability, containing the use of force in the international arena, and establishing a new and proper world structure based on independence, equality, and cooperation of mutual benefit.

What's with the super long sentences, guys? You can use a comma.

The book lingers on the details, too. Kim's wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier, his visit to the Khrunchev Space Center, his handwritten messages to factory workers, each a gesture presented as proof that the friendship ran on both moral and industrial rails. Even the geography is part of the sermon.

From the Pacific to St. Petersburg, he's shown traversing scores of thousands of kilometers so that the great exploits he performed for the development of DPRK-Russia friendship will be remembered for all eternity. And to be honest, that's pretty much the bulk of the story.

Putin regenerated into Medvedev in 2008, before then returning in a shock mid-season finale twist in 2012, while in 2011, Kim Jong-il came down with a terrible case of death and was replaced by pound-shot lookalike Kim Jong-un.

Putin Borderlands Romancey is a wreath-game reminder dobrze natural to the original And throughout all of that, it's been the same deal, the same vocabulary, the same theater, just a new set of faces swapping chairs.

Where things changed, however, was in February 2022, because that month, Putin gambled everything on a three-day special military operation to take a capital city sat a mere 210 kilometers by road from the Belarusian border, lost his bet, and then doubled down on spending the lives of over a million Russian men on it all.

Two months into that three-day operation, when Russian forces retreated from Kiev, it became apparent that it was not going to be a quick war, a la the 2008 Russia-Georgian War.

And as a result, all that flowery rhetoric with Pyongyang was now no longer going to exist in the abstract, i.e. with lots of handshakes, big smiles, and a cheeky trade deal here and there. No, no, no. It was going to become real action.

Not that you'd know it at first, though, because Pyongyang maintained that it was neutral in the conflict, with an unnamed Vice Director General of the General Equipment Bureau in the Ministry of National Defense.

In his response to the claims that they were supplying arms to Russia, came out and said the following in a 2022 statement released through KCNA, quote, Recently, the U.S. and other hostile forces have talked nonsense about the arms dealings between the DPRK and Russia.

We have never exported weapons or ammunition to Russia before, and we will not plan to export them in future. Such moves, of the U.S., and other hostile forces, are the most absurd paradox.

And that was pretty much the line until 2024, when things changed. In June of that year, Moscow and Pyongyang signed the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, Article 4 of which pledged that if either state, quote, falls into a state of war, the other will provide military and other assistance by all means.

It was the moral language of the 2000s, but now there was a war on.

By late that year, state media confirmed the treaty had been ratified and come into force, and in August, Kim Jong-un was back at the shell plants, praising the serial production capability of rocket launcher factories and urging workers to modernize equipment and increase output.

However, despite a notable increase in pictures of Kim Jong-un inside of armaments factories around this time, we could find nothing from Pyongyang where they openly admitted to supplying arms to Russia, and that's following an extensive trawl through KNCA's own news archive, the Western Catalog, as KCNA watch a national committee on North Korea, and several

Of North Korea's many periodicals.

That's not to say they haven't said it, only that it appears they haven't from the information that we have available, because, as you see, North Korea tends to be quite proactive in its counter-messaging to talking points it doesn't like.

It gets weirder, though, because there is irrefutable evidence that they began supplying munitions to Russia even before the signing of the partnership. See this Hwasong-11 short-range ballistic missile fired in April 2024 for evidence of that.

And for evidence of weapons delivered after the partnership was signed, see this KN-23 short-range ballistic missile fired in August 20. as well as this M1989 Coxsand self-propelled artillery gun destroyed in August 2025.

Either way, though, for our purposes today, that just being understanding North Korea's perspective on things, the story seemingly remains the same. Seemingly, we haven't delivered so much as a bullet to Moscow. Nothing to see here.

Please move along.

In stark contrast, though, they have not been silent on the matter of their expeditionary force sent to fight alongside Russia, as while speaking at the Russian embassy in Pyongyang, Kim told the assembled dignitaries that he had ordered the combat subunits of our armed forces to join in the Russian operation to liberate the Kursk area, declaring the move,

Quoting again, a just exercise of our sovereign rights.

Within days, the Workers' Party Central Military Commission issued its own statement confirming, quote, combat subunits participated in the operations in accordance with Article 4, hailed the victorious conclusion of the campaign, and promised to erect a monument to their feet, and provide special benefits to bereaved families.

Even Vladimir Putin's message thanking the heroism of the Korean soldiers fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with Russian comrades was reproduced verbatim by KCNA for domestic legitimacy, which, you know, must have scrambled the tiny brains of all those pro-Russian accounts that flooded Warfront's videos about Kursk, mocking us for believing the obvious lies

About DPRK troops being in Kursk.

Anyway, to get back to the main point, in Pyongyang's eyes, this chapter isn't a story about Russia at all. It's a story about them.

Every declaration signed, every train crossing the tundra, every photograph of Kim Minimunition's factory, all of it feeds the same myth, that the nation endures not by permission, but by principle. Even as the rest of the world calls it opportunism, Pyongyang calls it proof.

Proof that Juche works, that the country's self-reliant creed can still bend the movements of great powers to its orbit, and that history itself still remembers to knock on their door.

And unfortunately, as much as we could go on, we've just about run out of time today. It's a very long video. So let's end by asking the obvious question.

What have we learned? Well, we've learned that North Korea isn't just a mad dictatorship shouting into the void, but a country that operates on its own perfectly coherent internal logic, one that's bizarre to us, certainly, but consistent to them.

Everything from the bomb to the harvest, from the military parades to the aid to Russia, comes back to the same moral equation.

Survival equals virtue. They endure, therefore, they are righteous. We've also learned that the Juche idea isn't really about isolation at all.

It's about control, over the narrative, over destiny, over who gets to decide what Korea means. Song'an then militarized that philosophy, turning the gun barrel into both symbol and scripture.

And together, those two ideas stitch the country into a worldview where every hardship is reinterpreted as proof of purity, scarcity becomes sanctity, and even poverty becomes... pride.

Then there's the fact that for all its contradictions, the socialism that relies on black markets, the peace declared through weapons tests, the system works, not in the sense of creating a successful nation, but in the only way it needs to. It explains the world.

It gives North Koreans a moral map of why things are as they are, and why they must stay that way.

If they're poor, it's because they're proud, sanctioned because they're strong, alone because they're independent. It all fits together if you squint hard enough, and they've been doing exactly that for the better part of a century now. That's not to say it's admirable.

As we said back at the beginning, we are not interested in moralizing today, as plenty of others have already got that covered, but it is undoubtedly understandable. What we call propaganda, they call scripture. What we see as tragedy, they see as proof, and that ultimately is the key to understanding the North Korean worldview.

It's not about prosperity, or progress, or even victory. It's about endurance. To suffer and still stand is, in their eyes, the highest form of success.

So yeah, the slogans are ridiculous, the parades are overblown, the book titles are so long, and the speeches are a touch dramatic. But behind the absurdity sits something painfully human, the need to believe that struggle has meaning. And that's why, after 75 years of sanctions and starvation, the story still holds.

In a world they believe will never accept them, survival itself is the win. Thank you for watching.