or to launch a nuclear attack. Since the division of the Korean peninsula in 1945, North Korea has defined its self-preservation in terms of three policy priorities, or core interests: consolidating Kim Il Sung's power base, undermining South Korea to hasten U.S. withdrawal from the South, and securing maximal support from the former Soviet Union and China. These priorities were designed to assure the security of the Kim regime from domestic critics and against perceived threats from the United States and South Korea (Republic of Korea--ROK). Externally, Pyongyang has pursued anti-U.S. and anti-South Korean policies as interrelated and complementary approaches. Forcing the U.S. out of the South was judged necessary to lay the groundwork for establishing a docile pro-North Korean regime in Seoul. North Korean leaders continue to believe that the end of the U.S. military presence will enhance their chances for overthrowing anti- communist South Korean regimes and for unification on Pyongyang's terms. Pyongyang's current concerns about its own survival are cumulative and derived from three main sources: slow economic productivity since the 1970s, South Korea's insurmountable economic lead over North Korea in the crucial inter-Korean rivalry, and deepening isolation since the breakup of the Soviet Union--Pyongyang's most important source of weapons and economic assistance through 1990. Pyongyang sees no relief in the short run. In the past, as North Korea became less secure, it sought to attribute its economic troubles to the actions of the United States and its allies, South Korea, Japan and others. But now, North Korean leaders seem convinced of the need to befriend these old enemies; nonetheless, they are wary about opening to these countries on terms over which they have little or no control. In seeking to relate itself to the rest of the world, Pyongyang is both cautious and ambiguous, mixing conciliatory signals with contradictory har...
