April 23, 2024
Opinion

The transformation of the nuclear weapons calculus

Why North Korea’s Byungjin policy makes good sense, but has a sting in the tail

The Byungjin policy has come under a lot of criticism and even ridicule from the West since it was proclaimed at the Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea on March 31, 2013. It was termed "…a new strategic line on carrying out economic construction and building nuclear armed forces simultaneously," even though it was new it was legitimized by reference to the past. It was, the official statement said:

… a brilliant succession and development onto a new higher stage of the original line of simultaneously developing economy and national defence that was set forth and had been fully embodied by the great Generalissimos.

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