Notes on North Korea (6/11)

Dr. Tessman droppin' knowledge by the pond

As a new week began, we found ourselves back in the classroom, this time to discuss the role of North Korea in the region. We started with the North's Juche ideology, which our readings traced back to interactions with the Soviets, specifically their guerrilla tactics. Kim Il-sung, the Supreme Leader of North Korea, professed radical self-reliance from the nation's beginning, to which the scholars we read attribute much explanatory power. They claim this is responsible for much of North Korea's behavior as well as its isolated, security/survival-focused position in the global community, painting a picture of the North struggling to balance the pursuit of political and economic concessions from the global community with the protection of its identity, ideology, and legitimacy, both internationally and domestically.

We then jumped to the subject of Korean peninsular reunification, discussing it from the points of view of the  major regional actors.