year in recent years, or nearly a third of Pyongyang's annual export earnings. Lately, Pyongyang's oil crunch seems to be forcing the KPA's attention to the Middle East, reportedly to seek oil in exchange for North Korean Scud missiles and other military supplies. No less significant is the KPA's role as an instrument of foreign policy toward the Third World. In the 1980s, Pyongyang is known to have dispatched military advisors to 33 "nonaligned" countries, had a military training program for 18 countries and exported or granted weapons and other kinds of military aid to 35 countries. 10 This military diplomacy is linked to Pyongyang's overseas propaganda, which pursues sympathy and support from the Third World. As resources available for foreign arms, crude oil, and food imports continue to dwindle, the KPA's attitudes will become pivotal to the future of the DPRK. The KPA and Kim Jong Il will have to decide whether to channel more resources to the military at the expense of the economy; whether to press for major inter-Korean arms cuts and balanced force reductions; and whether to abandon the nuclear weapons program in exchange for concessions from Washington and Seoul.11 ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE"Kim Jong Il will have to depend on performance rather than charisma to succeed in leading North Korea in the future," says a 1991 report by a study group of prominent American scholars and specialists on Asian affairs. 12 The "performance" alludes to an economy whose lackluster record has had Pyongyang worried since the 1970s, long before the stagnant economy was severely shaken by the unexpected collapse of the Soviet bloc. In 1984, Pyongyang began approaching the West, albeit unsuccessfully, for joint ventures, expanded trade, and advanced industrial technology. Cheap labor and some abundant underground mineral ores aside, the North has had little to offer except promises of riches for would-be investors. Nearly at the bottom in international ...
