ng up his power and carrying out some reform, observers say, will be greater while his father remains a formidable presence. His strength rests heavily on his control of party ideology and organization. MILITARY LOYALTYFrom his early days as an anti-Japanese guerrilla leader in the 1930s, Kim Il Sung has had an abiding faith in the power of the military for political survival. The Korean People's Army (KPA)--the collective term for the North Korean armed forces-is a contemporary expression of his faith in the military and in his capacity to endure through adversity. The formidable war machine he built and presided over as supreme commander has been passed on to Kim Jong Il, named supreme commander in December 1991. The looming question is whether Kim Jong Il can inspire the same undivided institutional, but more importantly personal, loyalty from the KPA as his father has. The question is critical, since the KPA is the only organized group that can make or break Kim Jong Il's succession. The KPA is more than a professional institution. It not only is the guarantor of power, political instrument, and security blanket for the two Kims but plays economic and foreign policy roles as well. It can be likened to a state within the state and, more than any other institution (including possibly the party itself), is crucial to Pyongyang's self-preservation. It may not be an exaggeration to say that, in the North Korean perception, if the KPA cracks, so will the foundations of the DPRK. Probably this explains why the two Rims have taken pains to assure for themselves an iron-fisted grip on the military.7 In the elder Kim's case, he had built an army before he did the party; and understandably, he wants to have Kim junior gain the same firm control over the KPA. With his blessing, the younger Kim took "familiarization" trips to military bases on his own as early as 1964. From 1973 onward, when he started to involve himself actively in the party's ...
