North Korea's "Military First" Policy and Implications of Recent Nuclear Test:

Songun, is North Korea's "Military First" policy, which prioritizes the Korean People's Army in the affairs of state and allocates national resources to the army first. "Military First" as a principle guides political and economic life in North Korea. Songun elevates the Korean People's Army within North Korea as an organization and as a state function, granting it the primary position in the North Korean government and society. It guides domestic policy and international interactions. It is the framework for the government, designating the military as the "supreme repository of power." The North Korean government grants the Korean People's Army the highest economic and resource-allocation priority, and positions it as the model for society to emulate. After Kim Il-sung's death, North Korea shifted to songun as their primary ideology. One strand of the debate points to North Korea's desire to increase its military strength due to its precarious international position. In this sense, Songun is perceived as an aggressive, threatening move to increase the strength of the North Korean military at the expense of other parts of society.

The latest test follows a series of recent provocative actions that have dimmed hopes that young leader Kim Jong Un would be a reformer. In response to North Korea’s Nuclear test this week, South Korea staged large military drills and disclosed a new cruise missile capable of hitting any target in North Korea, just days after the North said it detonated its third nuclear device and as Pyongyang became increasingly candid about its intentions to build intercontinental ballistic missiles tipped with nuclear warheads. South Korea’s reaction has been a rapid attempt to show North Korea its own military strength. On Thursday, the South’s political parties put aside their bickering over domestic politics and passed nearly unanimously a parliamentary resolution condemning the North’s nuclear test. South Korea deployed destroyers and submarines off its eastern coast to test their combat readiness.

South Korea started a similar naval drill off the western coast on Wednesday and planned on Friday to begin live-fire drills involving rockets and artillery near the land border with North Korea. The United States remains vigilant in the face of North Korean provocations and steadfast in our defense commitments to allies in the region. The US military, which keeps 28,500 troops in South Korea, was staging an air drill mobilizing jet fighters.

North Korea has told its key ally China that it is prepared to stage one or even two more nuclear tests this year in an effort to force the United States into diplomatic talks. Just as the US starts to draw down its forces in the Middle East, North Korea is poking a stick in the hornet’s nest. It will be interesting to see how the UN responds this time? How many more sanctions will be imposed? And will the UN ask China or Russia to play a heavier role in trying to cool this loose cannon? Time will only tell.